This study documents a positive, economically meaningful impact of executives' general managerial skills on shareholder value. Examining 171 sudden executive deaths over thirty years, we find that a one-standard-deviation increase in the general ability index corresponds to at least a 1.5...

This study documents a positive, economically meaningful impact of executives’ general managerial skills on shareholder value. Examining 171 sudden executive deaths over thirty years, we find that a one-standard-deviation increase in the general ability index corresponds to at least a 1.5...

I collect 1,186 reported estimates of long-run value creation from 49 studies and present the first meta-analysis of the literature on shareholder activism and its effect on firm value in the longrun. This synthesis is necessary because shareholder activism is increasing over time and across...

This paper examines the economic determinants that lead German firms to adopt value-based management and control systems (VBMSs). Further, we investigate whether firms' operating performance improves after VBMS adoption. Using a hand-collected data set of German listed firms covering 1,575...

In this paper, we propose a model including the trading stage (acquisition of shares and blockholder disclosure) and the governance stage of activism. We analyze the blockholder's timing of disclosure, allowing for a strategic behavior. In some cases, the blockholder voluntarily renounces to use...

There is growing public concern over the rapid growth in CEO pay relative to average worker pay (CEO pay ratio). Critics contend that high CEO pay ratios could destroy firm value by damaging employee morale and/or signal CEO rent extraction. In this paper, we use a proprietary dataset to examine...

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...

I analyze the allocation of the power to decide on hostile takeovers between directors and shareholders. My contribution is to show who actually has power in a takeover and what factors are at work to give such power. Although directors are traditionally considered to be in charge in deciding...

Americans tend to admire powerful leaders. Powerful leaders are seen as exerting influence over their organizations and shaping outcomes around them. CEO power can be exercised across a wide spectrum of decisions, including those regarding corporate strategy, operations, acquisitions,...

This paper sheds new light on the impact of corporate monitoring by institutional investors. I show that investors with large proportions of their portfolio allocated to a firm, which I term high “portfolio-at-risk” (PAR) institutions, are effective monitors. Textual analysis of more than...