[...]This paper surveys the research on boards of directors in theeconomics and finance literature. Boards of directors are aneconomic institution that, in theory, helps to solve the agencyproblems inherent in managing an organization. Althoughboards satisfy numerous regulatory requirements,...

The authors identify the primary findings of the empirical literature on boards of directors. Typically, these studies have sought to answer one of the following questions: How are the characteristics of the board related to profitability? How do these characteristics affect boards' observable...

This paper is a survey of the literature on boards of directors, with an emphasis on research done subsequent to the Hermalin and Weisbach (2003) survey. The two questions most asked about boards are what determines their makeup and what determines their actions? These questions are...