In three self-contained essays, this dissertation deals with the impact of board structure on firm performance and with determinants of executive compensation, director compensation, and payout policy. Each of the three chapters is based on panel data sets of German firms. Distinguishing...

Recent studies [Bebchuk and Fried (2002)] have shown that managerial power and negotiations play important roles in the design of executive pay arrangements, suggesting that some CEOs may extract greater economic rent from shareholders when provided with the opportunity. This paper seeks to...

This dissertation explores the ways in which institutional organizational theory can enhance our understanding of how organizational structures that shape social inequality emerge, diffuse, and persist over time. More specifically, in three distinct papers, I examine the institutionalization of...

Prior research has identified the manner in which human capital, social capital, and other intangible resources create value for organizations. Among such resources, those contributed by a firm's top managers have been singled out as particularly important for the generation and preservation of...

My dissertation examines a board's decision to hire a star CEO and the implication of such decision on the new CEO compensation and firm performance. I develop a new methodology to identify a star CEO by analyzing the texts contained in 18,240 Wall Street Journal news articles. Unlike previous...

This dissertation contains three essays on financial reporting, tax, and politics. The first essay explores whether the tax authority is able to generate spillover effects for auditors. The IRS can generate spillover effects for auditors, as a strong IRS increases manager’s incentives to...