Although a growing number of investors are engaging with sovereign entities on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues, little academic research investigates this new form of investor activism. Applying universal ownership theory and drawing on eleven case studies of policy...

How does a board of directors decide what is right? The contest over this question is frequently framed as a debate between shareholder value and stakeholder rights, between a utilitarian view of the ethics of corporate governance and a deontological one. This paper uses a case study with...

It is widely believed that ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) investing helps reduce regulatory and reputational risks. In a large global panel, we find that ethics controversies are more likely for firms that adopt popular ESG policies. The effect is attenuated by controlling for size,...

The study examines the relation between the nationality and educational background diversity of directors serving on corporate boards and the firms' corporate social responsibility (CSR). We measures nationality diversity by directors' national citizenship and educational background diversity by...

This study examines the impact of board diversity on firms' corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance. Using seven different measures of board diversity across 1,489 U.S. firms from 1999 to 2011, the study finds that board diversity is positively associated with CSR performance. Board...

We analyze a unique source of media data to assess the influence of different topics of corporate news on costs of financing for a sample of large European and US firms from 2006 to 2016. We distinguish between volume (number of news), tonality (positive, neutral, negative), source (financial...

Corporate governance debates have undergone a fundamental shift, with environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) issues coming to the forefront of decision-making by boards, executives and shareholders. Across a spectrum of stakeholders, companies and their boards face pressure to...

This paper examines the stock price reaction to cross-border spinoff announcements and investigates whether country characteristics (such as takeover market liquidity and investor protection) cause variation in the announcements' wealth effects. We observe a positive and significant price...