We analyse the structure of corporate boards in Japan to determine whether they are matched to each firm's specific needs. Consistent with US findings, our results show that board size is positively related to firm size and firm complexity, and negatively related to monitoring costs. However,...

The difficulty to measure the long-term benefits of R&D expenditures and the distortions induced by R&D accounting suggest that R&D-intensive firms could be undervalued. Using several methods commonly-applied to detect the abnormal returns associated with mispricing, we find no evidence that the...

Divestitures have the potential to create shareholder value by helping firms optimize their portfolio of assets. Even so, firms do not necessarily take up divestitures because of agency problems. In fact, large controlling shareholders may prefer to extract private benefits of control at the...

We construct a governance index based on several attributes known to be associated with good corporate governance. After checking that the index is positively associated with standard indicators of firm performance, we use it to evaluate the returns on governance-sorted portfolios. Our main...

We construct a governance index based on several attributes known to be associated with good corporate governance. After checking that the index is positively associated with standard indicators of firm performance, we use it to evaluate the returns on governance-sorted portfolios. Our main...

This paper evaluates the influence of corporate governance on the risk taking of Japanese firms. We find that family control and ownership concentration are associated with higher idiosyncratic risk, whereas bank control has the opposite consequence. Considering the link between idiosyncratic...

Consistent with a bank-centered governance system, Japanese firms exhibit an exceptionally low level of performance variability. The increased involvement of foreign investors motivated by shareholder value is thus likely to have triggered a major shift in their risk-taking behavior. My results...

Les déterminants justifiant l'utilisation des critères non financiers pour évaluer ou piloter la performance renvoient à des explications théoriques en liaison avec les approches contractuelles et cognitives. L'objectif de notre article est de proposer pour ces deux approches une analyse...