The number of women on boards of public companies in the United States and Canada is still staggeringly low despite the fact that both of these jurisdictions have implemented disclosure-based regulation relating to board diversity. Typically, arguments in support of regulation aimed at...

Since my books on the role of women appeared, in 2007 and in 2010, the participation by women in corporate governance has become a front page issue in many European nations, including Norway, Spain, and France, which have adopted quota laws, and in Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy, which may...

Investors have in recent years attempted to add climate proposals to the ballot of shareholder meetings, requesting climate disclosures, say on climate, or emission targets. However, many corporate law systems view environmental (and social) issues as matters of strategy and statutorily...

Corporate governance has become a hot topic following accounting scandals at Enron, WorldCom and others, which led to colossal corporate collapses. In many of those cases, the boards were 'asleep at the wheel,' failing to catch managements' questionable accounting practices. The Sarbanes-Oxley...

A core element of most analyses of how capitalism is failing us is the shareholder primacy doctrine that has taken hold of corporate law and corporate governance. The doctrine has been developed in theory (among others through the agency theory) and practice (e.g. executive remuneration and...

Board evaluation can provide a vital tool for directors to review and improve their performance. This will eventually lead to significant value creation opportunities for firms. But is increased regulation and regulatory guidance requiring board evaluation a realistic or sensible move? Is it...

We examine the impact of corporate board reforms on firm value in 41 countries. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find that board reforms increase firm value. Reforms involving board and audit committee independence, but not reforms involving separation of chairman and CEO positions,...

In this paper, we examine independent directors as a legal transplant from dispersed ownership systems to concentrated ownership ones. We focus on Continental Europe, Japan, Brazil, Russia, India and China. Our main thesis is that independent directors have a different and relatively narrower...

Does the structure of corporate boards affect bondholder agency risk? Using mandatory board reforms, I show that firms that transition to independent boards experience economically significant reductions in payout, financing, and event risk covenants in their bond contracts. This effect is not...

In the United States, the representation of women on corporate boards of directors has been flat for 6 years now. By contrast, elsewhere around the world the topic is a hot button issue. This includes Australia where the proportion of board seats held by women has suddenly jumped from 8% in 2010...