Voting rights are a basic shareholder-protection mechanism. Outside of the core voting requirements state law imposes (election of directors and votes on fundamental changes), federal law grants shareholders additional voting rights. But these rights introduce concomitant costs into corporate...

In the past decade, as a result of many interrelated changes in the economic environment, the role and the pressures on the corporate governance of firms have been significantly transformed in the US and the UK. To test the magnitude of this changed environment, we study one aspect of corporate...

In May 2009, the SEC proposed the most significant amendments to proxy rules since 1942. We build comprehensive samples of US and UK shareholder proposals for the period 2000-2006 to study the relation between proxy rules and proxy practices and the effect of shareholder proposals on firm...

We argue that non-professional shareholders are not generally harmed by open market or negotiated purchases during or shortly after the termination of a tender offer. With widespread availability of fair price amendments, share control statutes, poison pill amendments, and fair value appraisals,...

We provide an in-depth comparison of US and UK shareholder proposal rules and relate the differences in rules to differences in proposing activities, using comprehensive shareholder proposal data from both countries for 2000-2006. UK proposal rules are more onerous on proposal sponsors, but UK...

We provide an in-depth comparison of US and UK shareholder proposal rules and relate the differences in rules to differences in proposing activities and performance, using comprehensive shareholder proposal data from both countries for 2000 through 2006. UK proposal rules are more onerous on...