This study examines the effects of shareholder support for equity compensation plans on subsequent chief executive officer (CEO) compensation. Using cross-sectional regression, instrumental variable, and regression discontinuity research designs, we find little evidence that either lower...

Proxy advisory and corporate governance rating firms (such as RiskMetrics/Institutional Shareholder Services, GovernanceMetrics International, and The Corporate Library) play an increasingly important role in U.S. public markets. They rank the quality of firm corporate governance, advise...

This study examines the effects of shareholder support for equity compensation plans on subsequent chief executive officer (CEO) compensation. Using cross-sectional regression, instrumental variable, and regression discontinuity research designs, we find little evidence that either lower...

Proxy advisory firms are highly influential in the design and approval of equity compensation plans. The largest proxy advisory firm — Institutional Shareholder Services — uses a variety of tests to determine its recommendation on equity plan proposals. Among these is a proprietary metric...

We use machine learning to assess the predictive ability of over a hundred corporate governance features for firm outcomes. We consider financial-statement restatements, class-action lawsuits, business failures, operating performance, firm value, stock returns, and credit ratings. We discover...

We construct a novel measure of disclosure choice by firms. Our measure is computed using linguistic analysis of conference calls to identify whether a manager's response to an analyst question is a “non-answer.” Using our measure, about 11% of analyst questions elicit non-answers from...

Based on two samples of high quality personality data for chief executive officers (CEOs), we use linguistic features extracted from conferences calls and statistical learning techniques to develop a measure of CEO personality in terms of the Big Five traits: agreeableness, conscientiousness,...

We construct a novel measure of disclosure choice by firms. Our measure is computed using linguistic analysis of conference calls to identify whether a manager's response to an analyst question is a “non-answer.” Using our measure, about 11% of analyst questions elicit non-answers from...