This paper investigates why corporations hire outside board of directors and how the outside directors affect firm performance. I use a sample of large Japanese corporations to test my hypotheses. Using a sample of 173 unique firms during the 2011-2021 period, I find that firms on average...

The recent global financial crisis contributes for recognizing the importance of corporate governance mechanisms in the banking industry. Although mixed evidence is associated with the role of board of directors in non-financial industries, a few analyses have been made of the relation between...

We empirically investigate the adoption of stock option plans in Japan after the corporate governance reforms of the early 2000s. We examine the determinants of stock option grants, especially focusing on the effects of herding behavior among Japanese firms and the change of accounting treatment...

For 174 large Japanese corporations during 1992-1996, we find that top executive pay is higher in firms with weaker corporate governance mechanisms, controlling for standard economic determinants of pay. We use management ownership and family control (“the ownership mechanisms”), and...

To examine whether outside (or independent) directors monitor management in the shareholder interest, the authors collect Japanese companies that experience 33 per cent or more performance declines during the financial crisis (for the 2008 accounting year) and investigate how board independence...