Proxy advisory firms have significant influence over the voting decisions of institutional investors and the governance choices of publicly traded companies. However, it is not clear that the recommendations of these firms are correct and generally lead to better outcomes for companies and their...

Institutional investors are highly dissatisfied with the quality of information that they receive about corporate governance policies and practices in the annual proxy. Across the board, they want proxies to be shorter, more concise, more candid, and less legal. The largest complaint involves...

In 2005, Relational Investors, a registered investment advisor, launched a proxy contest to gain two seats on the board of directors of Sovereign Bancorp. Relational accused Sovereign of operational mismanagement and poor corporate governance, representing a breach in fiduciary responsibility by...

This paper examines the economic consequences of institutional investors outsourcing research and voting decisions in public company elections to proxy advisory firms. We investigate the implications of these decisions in the context of shareholder say-on-pay voting required in 2011 under the...

This paper examines the relationship between firm performance and the recommendations provided by proxy advisory firms in the United States, regarding shareholder votes in stock option exchange programs. Using a comprehensive sample of stock option exchanges announced between 2004 and 2009, we...