We find that the presence of independent directors who are blockholders (IDBs) in firms promotes better CEO contracting and monitoring, and higher firm valuation. Using a panel of about 11,500 firm-years with a unique, hand-collected dataset on IDB-identity and a novel instrument, we find that...

We examine the influence of common ownership on commonalities in the information environment. Specifically, we study commonalities in financial statements and in the actions of key agents such as financial analysts and firm managers who contribute and respond to the information environment....

Investors increasingly hold stock in multiple firms that compete in the same product market (“common ownership”), and this ownership structure is positively associated with voluntary disclosure. We posit that common owners want managers to take coordinated anti-competitive actions (i.e.,...

This study provides new evidence on the relation between institutional ownership and the equity incentives provided to CEOs by their portfolio holdings of stock and stock options. We show that when firms' CEOs have abnormally high equity incentives, higher institutional ownership is associated...