Over the past two decades, hedge fund activism has emerged as a new mechanism of corporate governance that brings about operational, financial and governance reforms to a corporation. Many prominent business executives and legal scholars are convinced that the entire American economy will suffer...

Shareholder say-on-pay votes allow institutional investors to influence the incentives of managers and, consequently, corporate behaviour. Surprisingly, the preferences of investors on executive compensation have been largely overlooked in the ongoing debates on sustainable corporate behaviour....

The determinants of firm level cash holdings are well documented, yet relatively less is known about the influence of CEO characteristics on corporate liquidity decisions. We examine changes in cash holdings around CEO turnover events, a period in which discrete changes in managerial preferences...

According to the prior literature, family executives of family-controlled firms receive lower compensation than non-family executives. One of the key driving forces behind this is the existence of family members who are not involved in management, but own significant fraction of shares and...

Despite developments of recent theoretical and numerous empirical studies on the policies effectively adopted by companies, the dividend distribution policy (DDP) remains largely unexplained. In this regard, the main purpose of the current study is to empirically examine the effects of both CEO...

We use a scientifically-based measure of executive facial attractiveness that is correlated with survey assessments, but not as noisy, and find a positive link between attractiveness and CEO selection. We find evidence that better interpersonal relationships is one mechanism through which CEO...

I investigate firm financial management when the CFO has greater authority by being on the board and the corresponding changes when the CFO position leaves the board. After the 2002 regulatory changes on board composition requirements, determinants of CFO board membership shift from being driven...

We empirically test the Expertise vs. Management friendly hypotheses of independent director tenure through dividend policies. We find that the likelihood and the level of dividends increase in independent director tenure, and firms with long-tenured directors are more likely to smooth...

We use a unique dataset of more than 1,000 Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and Chief Financial Officers around the world to investigate the degree to which executives delegate financial decisions and the circumstances that drive variation in delegation. Delegation does not appear to be...