This paper uses Taiwanese data to examine the impact of firm-level corporate governance mechanisms on firms' average cash holdings. Specifically, it examines how a firm's number of banking relationships and the percentages of managerial ownership and board ownership impact the firm's level of...

I look at the relationship between corporate loan terms and connections of board members to bankers through employment on other boards, a connection less likely to be affected by confounding factors. Specifically, I examine whether loan terms such as pricing and maturity as well as other loan...

This study investigates the effects of board characteristics on R&D investment by utilizing a data set of electronics firms listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange Corporations. The empirical results indicate that R&D investment is negatively associated with board size and positively associated with...

An exhaustive literature has analyzed the function of corporate board directors as monitors, yet analyses of the advising role of corporate directors have been rare. This study fills this gap by constructing director-specific industry expertise measures for all directors of S&P 1,500 firms from...

We examine how the director independence mandates of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) and related reforms affected board geography and the quality of financial reporting. Using 1998-2006 data on the residential addresses of individual directors, we document that the geographic proximity to...

We examine the influence of outside directors' industry experience on segment investment, segment operating performance, and firm valuation for conglomerates. Given board composition is endogenous, we instrument for the presence of industry expert directors using the supply of experienced...

Divergent views exist about whether boards must tradeoff advising for monitoring performance when utilizing outside versus inside directors. We suggest a dichotomous tradeoff focus underestimates outside directors' impact on board performance. We find outside director tenure positively...

This paper examines the effect of board governance on investment efficiency. I use the staggered enactment of board reforms in 41 countries as a shock to board structure that exogenously improves the quality of board oversight of managers. I find that investment–Q sensitivity improves by...

Institutional investors pay considerable attention to the quality of a company's governance. Unfortunately, it is difficult for outside observers to reliably gauge governance quality. Oftentimes, poor governance manifests itself only after decisions have been made and their outcomes known. We...

We study how interest alignment between CEOs and corporate boards influences investment efficiency and identify a novel force behind the benefit of misaligned preferences. Our model entails a CEO who encounters a project, gathers investment-relevant information, and decides whether or not to...