This paper analyzes conflicts of interest in proxy voting by mutual funds using newly-available data on funds' voting records for 2004. We first examine mutual funds' ties to corporate clients created via pension fund business and their patterns of portfolio ownership. We then link these to...

Newly released data on corporate governance and disclosure practices reveal wide within-country variation, with the variation increasing as legal environment gets less investor friendly. This paper examines why firms practice high-quality governance when law does not require it; firm attributes...

Newly released data on corporate governance and disclosure practices reveal wide within-country variation, with the variation increasing as legal environment gets less investor friendly. This paper examines why firms practice high-quality governance when law does not require it; firm attributes...

Our results highlight the importance of interaction among management, labor, and investors in shaping corporate governance. We find that strong union laws protect not only workers but also underperforming managers. Weak investor protection combined with strong union laws are conducive to...

We compile the list of articles published in major refereed economics journals during the last 35 years that have received more than 500 citations. We document major shifts in the mode of contribution and in the importance of different sub-fields: Theory loses out to empirical work, and micro...

We study the location-specific component in research productivity of economics and finance faculty who have ever been affiliated with the top 25 universities in the last three decades. We find that there was a positive effect of being affiliated with an elite university in the 1970s; this effect...

Data on corporate governance and disclosure practices reveal wide within-country variation that decreases with the strength of investors' legal protection. A simple model identifies three firm attributes related to that variation: investment opportunities, external financing, and ownership...

This article is an exploratory examination of the benefits and risks associated with opening of stock markets. Specifically, we estimate changes in the level and volatility of stock returns, inflation, and exchange rates around market openings. We find that stock returns increase immediately...

This paper examines the benefits and risks of market internationalization by analyzing the effect of recent market openings in developing countries. We estimate changes in the return and volatility of stock prices, portfolio flows, and the volatility of portfolio flows around market openings. We...

We hypothesize that labor participation in governance helps improve risk sharing between employees and employers. It provides an ex-post mechanism to enforce implicit insurance contracts protecting employees against adverse shocks. Results based on German establishment-level data show that...