We show that firms with chief executive officers (CEOs) who gain general managerial skills over their lifetime work experience produce more patents. We address the potential endogenous CEO-firm matching bias using firm-CEO fixed-effects and variation in the enforceability of non-compete...

We investigate whether mutual funds whose investors and stocks are decoupled (i.e., investor location does not coincide with that of the stock holdings) benefit from a natural hedge as they have fewer outflows during market downturns and fewer inflows during upturns. Using a sample of equity...

We test the hypothesis that foreign direct investment promotes corporate governance spillovers in the host country. Using firm-level data from 64 countries during the period 2005-2014, we find that cross-border M&A activity is associated with subsequent improvements in the governance of...

We study the performance of equity mutual funds run by asset management divisions of commercial banking groups using a worldwide sample. We show that bank-affiliated funds under-perform unaffiliated funds by 92 basis points per year. Consistent with conflicts of interest, the under-performance...

We examine whether institutional investors affect corporate governance by analyzing portfolio holdings of institutions in companies from 23 countries during the period 2003-2008. We find that firm-level governance is positively associated with international institutional investment. Changes in...

We compare the performance of local versus foreign institutional investors using a comprehensive data set of equity holdings in 32 countries during the 2000-2010 period. We find that foreign institutions perform as well as local institutions on average, but only domestic institutions show a...

In a sample of underwritten seasoned equity offerings (SEOs), issuers with boards dominated by independent directors experience higher abnormal announcement returns than issuers with boards dominated by insiders. Firm size, transparency, and other governance characteristics do not explain the...

The average idiosyncratic volatility of small public firms is a positive predictor of future stock returns. This is true for returns of both large and small firms. We consider several economic arguments for this result, including a liquidity premium, and we rule out all but one of them. Our...

This paper challenges the widely accepted stylized fact that CEOs in the United States are paid significantly more than their foreign counterparts. Using CEO pay data across 14 countries with mandated pay disclosures, we show that the US pay premium is economically modest and primarily reflects...

This paper studies the determinants of the domestic and the foreign bond biases and their evolution over time using aggregate bond allocation data from CPIS. Our results show that the home bias is prevalent across all countries, despite the decreasing of the domestic bias in most countries in...