We examine the impact of the social attachment through age similarity between the independent directors and the CEO on earnings management. Using changes in independent director composition due to director death and retirement for identification, we find that firms with the presence of the...

We examine the impact on firm performance of independent directors as a minority group. We find that, when there are only one or two independent directors, firm performance suffers, while with three or more independent directors it improves. We use the changes in independent director composition...