Firm Performance: Do Non-Executive Directors Have Minds Of TheirOwn? Evidence From UK Panel Data

I investigate the relation between firm performance and both ownership structure and board composition. Use of theGMM methodology permits simultaneous control of both endogeneity of the independent variables and fixedeffects. The data comprise an original, large, hand-collected panel dataset of UK firms for the period 1991-2001.Results indicate that the direction of causality runs from ownership and board composition to performance. I find acubic relation between performance and ownership by executive directors....