Using U.S. states' staggered enactment of majority voting legislation (MVL) as plausibly negative exogenous shocks to director job security, we find an increase in the unconditional likelihood of forced CEO turnover and the sensitivity of forced CEO turnover to firm performance following its...

CEO succession at many companies occurs in a black box. Shareholders are not privy to boardroom discussions prior to the announcement of a CEO departure, and press releases announcing the change contain boilerplate language that does not make it clear whether the CEO stepped down voluntary or...

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 whether boards are sufficiently well-informed to make efficient decisions on CEO compensation. In order to mitigate the endogeneity of board decision on CEO compensation, we use mutual fund flow-driven trading pressure as an exogenous shock to stock price informativeness. Consistent...

We examine how boards decide on CEO compensation depending on how informative stock prices are. In order to mitigate the endogeneity of board decisions, we use extreme mutual fund flow-driven trading pressure as an exogenous shock to stock price informativeness. Consistent with informed boards...

Many companies in Germany must provide information beyond financial figures in their annual reports. For some years now, legislators have increasingly required information on non-financial aspects, such as the shares of women in leadership positions. Using a quantitative text analysis of annual...

This paper analyzes how board independence affects a board's monitoring intensity and the CEO pay disparity. We consider a corporate tournament model with a novel feature that the board of directors may lack independence. This has significant implications for a board's monitoring and rewarding...

This study examines the remuneration of non-executive directors, examining individual monitoring characteristics and director capital in addition to firm characteristics. Using a large sample of FTSE All-Share non-executive directors from 2001-2012, we find that remuneration is positively linked...

This study investigates the importance of corporate boards by exploiting the predictions from a learning model in which capital markets process information and learn about the quality of incoming directors. The estimates suggest that upon the arrival of a new director, uncertainty about...