We investigate the relation between corporate value and the proportion of the board made up of independent directors in 799 firms with a dominant shareholder across 22 countries. We find a positive relation, especially in countries with weak legal protection for shareholders. The findings...

A number of studies have reported value discounts for listed companies in countries that provide weak legal protection to minority shareholders. Such studies typically attribute these discounts to the ability, and the well-documented tendency, of controlling shareholders to extract a...

During the 1990s and beyond, countries around the world have witnessed calls and/or mandates for more outside directors on publicly-traded companies’ boards even though extant studies find no significant correlation between outside directors and corporate performance. We examine the connection...

Between 1993 and 2000 at least 18 countries saw publication of guidelines that propose minimum representation of outside directors on corporate boards. The apparent premise underlying this movement is that boards with significant outside directors will make different and, perhaps, better...