Shareholder activism by institutions is an important aspect of U.S. financial markets. We provide an overview of shareholder activism by institutional and individual investors, emphasising their focus on corporate governance, the identity of the activists, and a brief history of their...

We provide arguments and present evidence that corporate governance structures are endogenous responses to the costs and benefits firms face when they choose the mechanisms that comprise those structures. In particular, an industry's investment opportunities, product uniqueness, competitive...

We study shareholder proposals across a period of substantial activity and find systematic differences both across sponsor identity and across time. To understand how these proposals are perceived by other investors, we examine voting outcomes and short-term market reactions conditioned on...

We provide arguments and present evidence that corporate governance structures are composed of interrelated mechanisms, which are in turn endogenous responses to the costs and benefits firms face when they choose those mechanisms. Examining board structures and the use of corporate charter...

We examine whether institutional investor activism by public pension funds is effective in achieving its stated goal of increasing shareholder value. An investigation of the short term performance indicates that there are significantly positive abnormal returns surrounding the targeting of firms...

We document that backfilling in the ExecuComp database introduces a data-conditioning bias that can affect inferences and make replication of previous work difficult. Although backfilling can be advantageous due to greater data coverage, if not addressed the over-sampling of firms with strong...

We examine the relation between corporate governance and ownership structure, focusing on the role of institutional investors. In many countries, institutional investors have become dominant players in the financial markets. We discuss the theoretical basis for, history of, and empirical...

We provide an overview of shareholder activism by institutional and individual investors. We discuss the objectives of activist shareholders, the identity of the activists, and provide a brief history of their activities. We also present a survey of the theoretical and empirical research...

In the early 1900's American financial institutions were active participants in U.S. corporate governance but the enactment of securities laws in the 1930's limited the power of financial intermediaries and thus their governance role. The consequence of such laws and regulations was a...