We examine the outside director selection process using unique data on appointments of academic directors. Overall, we find academic directors tend to be appointed by small- and mid-cap firms expanding their boards. However, we find important differences in both the factors influencing academic...

Following SOX, exchanges mandated majority independent boards and defined independence such that some directors could reclassify from non-independent to independent. Because membership is unchanged, reclassifications make a board more independent legally, but not economically. I exploit the...

This paper argues that director interlocks, a phenomenon in which directors sit on more than one corporate board, ought to be an object of expanded discussion in corporate governance research and practice. Thus far, interlocks have attracted little attention from legal scholars, and when...

We examine the link between age diversity on boards of directors and corporate misconduct. We find firms with age-diverse boards to be associated with significantly less corporate misconduct – both in terms of the number of violations and the fines paid. This finding is robust to various...

In recent years, regulators have introduced gender diversity quota laws and dis-closure-based approaches to increase the representation of women on corporate boards. These developments have set off a global discussion about the importance of diversity in the boardroom and what role governments...

The hallmark of good corporate governance is an independent board of directors to oversee management. However, it is not clear that independent directors receive the information they need to make fully informed decisions on all key matters. Partly, this is due to an information gap, whereby...

In this updated Closer Look, we examine the tensions between corporate culture, financial incentives, and employee conduct as illustrated by the Wells Fargo cross-selling scandal. In 2016, Wells Fargo admitted that employees had opened as many as 2 million accounts without customer authorization...