The authors review recent literature on the role of corporate financial reporting and transparency in reducing governance-related agency conflicts between managers, directors, shareholders, and other stakeholders—most notably financial regulators—and suggest some avenues for future research....

Using an experimental design that exploits exogenous reductions in coverage resulting from brokerage house mergers, we find that a reduction in coverage causes a deterioration in financial reporting quality. The effect of coverage on disclosure is more pronounced for firms with weak shareholder...

This paper examines the economic consequences of the initiation of governance analyst coverage. Governance analysts process, enhance, and disseminate governance-related information to capital market participants via, for example, governance reports and ratings. Using an exogenous shock in the...

Investor relations officers (IROs) play a central role in corporate communications with Wall Street. We survey 610 IROs at U.S. public companies and conduct 14 follow-up interviews to deepen our understanding of the role of IROs in corporate disclosure events. Three important themes emerge from...

We use agency theory to explore how analyst coverage is influenced by the managerial entrenchment associated with the staggered board. The evidence suggests that firms with staggered boards attract significantly larger analyst following. We also document that firms with staggered boards...

This report updates and expands earlier studies to look at the profitability of $349.7 billion of buybacks executed from 2000 through early 2010 by a sample of 275 corporations. The sample companies, drawn mainly from the technology sector, enjoy total equity market value today of $945.6...

Prior studies show uncertain associations between board independence and firm performance. We propose a novel measure of board independence and argue that influential CEO-directors (ICDs), those with higher compensation than the appointing firm's CEO, are more independent of appointing firm's...

We examine the determinants and consequences of voting outcomes in uncontested director elections. Exploiting a unique hand-collected dataset of the rationale behind proxy advisors' recommendations — the primary driver of voting outcomes —, we document the director and board characteristics...

Divergent views exist about whether boards must tradeoff advising for monitoring performance when utilizing outside versus inside directors. We suggest a dichotomous tradeoff focus underestimates outside directors' impact on board performance. We find outside director tenure positively...