CEOs often receive pensions that provide life annuities of up to 60% of their final salary plus bonus. I investigate the extent to which pensions are managerial rent extraction and/or the result of optimal contracting between CEOs and boards of directors. Specifically, I examine whether CEOs...

This paper develops an agency model in which stock-based compensation is a double-edged sword, inducing managers to exert productive effort but also inducing managers to divert valuable firm resources to misrepresent performance. We examine how the potential for manipulation affects the...

We posit that placing insiders on the board facilitates information flows to outside directors, mitigates the CEO's role as information gatekeeper, and allows managers to be more independent of the CEO. We find that inside directors are more prevalent in environments of greater information...

The exercise price of stock options is typically the closing stock price on the option grant dates, so managers can potentially benefit from low stock prices on those dates. Prior studies find that on average, managers issue more pessimistic guidance before than after grant dates. They interpret...

We investigate the reputational impact of financial fraud for outside directors based on a sample of firms facing shareholder class action lawsuits. Following a financial fraud lawsuit, outside directors do not face abnormal turnover on the board of the sued firm but experience a significant...

Objective - The purpose of this research is to obtain empirical research on the effect of corporate governance on earnings management in distressed and non-distressed companies. Corporate governance in this research is measured by independent board, audit committee, board of commissioners,...

This study examines the role of media coverage on meritorious shareholder litigation. Asserting a causal effect of the media on litigation is normally difficult due to the endogenous nature of media coverage. However, we use the Wall Street Journal’s backdating coverage to overcome these...

Shareholder rights and director remuneration represents a highly debated but still controversial issue in corporate governance. The purpose of this study was to explore why blockholder-dominated listed firms use stock options as directors' remuneration tools. By using a unique hand-collected...

We examine which independent directors are held accountable when investors sue firms for financial and disclosure related fraud. Investors can name independent directors as defendants in lawsuits, and they can vote against their re-election to express displeasure over the directors'...

This study investigates whether a firm's corporate governance practices have an effect on the quality of its publicly released financial information. In particular, we examine the relationship between audit committee and board of directors characteristics and the extent of corporate earnings...