We empirically examine the Capital Purchase Program (CPP) used by the US government to bail out distressed banks with equity infusions during the Great Recession. We find strong evidence that a feature of the CPP - the government's ability to appoint independent directors on the board of an...

Pothers about liability risks for company directors and officers are nothing new in corporate law. The global financial crisis, however, created a unique and unfamiliar commercial matrix in which such concerns were played out. Although Australia fared better than many jurisdictions during the...

We find that co-opted boards facilitate more erratic and arbitrary decision-making, contributing towards default risk. A one standard deviation increase in co-option increases default risk by 11% relative to normal levels. Supporting the notion that co-option makes decision-making more erratic,...

Thousands of years ago, Roman businessmen often ran joint businesses through commonly owned, highly intelligent slaves. Roman slaves did not have full legal capacity and were considered property of their co-owners. Now business corporations are looking to delegate decision-making to uber...