Corporate boards are the focal points for companies' decisions on strategy and investment, and hence they embody the key features of firm production and management. Researchers and policy makers alike thus invariably ask “who makes these decisions?” A stream of research examines the...

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...

Using five empirical methodologies to account for endogeneity issues, this study investigates the effects of board independence and managerial pay on the performance of 169 Saudi listed firms between 2007 and the end of 2014. Studying board independence and managerial pay utilises the main...

This paper uses legal board size requirements to test whether board size affects firm performance and value. Since 1976, the minimum size of German firms’ supervisory boards increases from 12 to 16 directors at 10,000 domestic employees, resulting in a sharp increase in board sizes. Regression...

Using quasi-natural experiments, we study how directors’ relative power or influence modulates the effects of board gender diversity. At low levels of influence, female directors have no significant impact on firm risk-taking and financial performance. However, as their influence increases...

This study examines whether and how female directors enhance innovation performance. Based on a sample of U.S. firms, this study shows that firms with more female directors on boards present a more pronounced positive association between R&D and future firm performance (measured by earnings and...

This paper studies the ways in which the geographic locations of a firm's foreign operations affect the appointment and effectiveness of foreign directors. Using country-level data on firm internationalization and board foreignness, we find that firms with more foreign subsidiaries in a region...

Using the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the associated change in listing standards as a natural experiment, we find that while board independence decreases the cost of debt when credit conditions are strong or leverage low, it increases the cost of debt when credit conditions are poor or...

This paper examines how the extent of industrial firms' connectedness to other firms through board interlocks is associated with their bond yield spreads. We hypothesize that the transmission of more “soft” information about better connected firms would lower information asymmetries of such...

In this study, we examine the effect of worldwide board reforms on the cost of debt financing. We find an overall increase in loan spreads in countries that initiate board reforms versus those without the reforms, which suggests that board reforms strengthen the power of shareholders at the cost...