This paper examines the use of seven mechanisms to control agency problems between managers and shareholders. These mechanisms are: shareholdings of insiders, institutions, and large blockholders; use of outside directors; debt policy; the managerial labor market; and the market for corporate...

Anecdotal evidence suggests that top managers of firms that are investigated or charged with criminal fraud lose their jobs. From a theoretical perspective, it is plausible that fraud scandals create incentives to change managers, in an attempt to improve the firm's performance, reinvest in lost...

It is often stated that bidders acquire poorly-run targets in order to improve firm performance. This inefficient management hypothesis is frequently tested by examining target stock returns in the years prior to an acquisition. While the hypothesis is commonly assumed in the literature to be...