We model the tradeoff between the balance and the strength of incentives implicit in the choice between hierarchical and matrix organizational structures. We show that managerial biases determine which structure is optimal: hierarchical forms are preferred when biases are low, while matrix...

We develop and test the hypothesis that private information incorporated into stock prices (price informativeness) affects the structure of corporate boards. We find a negative relation between measures of price informativeness and measures of board independence. This finding is robust to the...

We show that female directors have a significant impact on board inputs and firm outcomes. In a sample of US firms, we find that female directors have better attendance records than male directors, male directors have fewer attendance problems the more gender-diverse the board is, and women are...

We model the tradeoff between the balance and the strength of incentives implicit in the choice between hierarchical and matrix organizational structures. We show that managerial biases determine which structure is optimal: hierarchical forms are preferred when biases are low, while matrix...

This paper examines voluntary disclosures of information about corporate strategies. We develop a model in which managers choose whether to reveal their strategic plans only to some partners of the firm or also to the outside world. We show that managers face a tradeoff when deciding whether to...

We survey the empirical literature on disproportional ownership, i.e. the use of mechanisms that separate voting rights from cash flow rights in corporations. Our focus is mostly on explicit mechanisms that allow some shareholders to acquire control with less than proportional economic interest...

The primary way in which directors obtain necessary information is by attending board meetings. Bank directors, in particular, are strongly urged to attend meetings by regulators. We investigate whether such pressure is sufficient for bank directors to have good attendance records. Using data on...

Many corporations reward their outside directors with a modest fee for each board meeting they attend. Using a large panel data set on director attendance behavior in publicly-listed firms for the period 1996-2003, we provide robust evidence that directors are less likely to have attendance...

We use a large sample of guessed ice break-up dates for the Tanana River in Alaska to study differences between outcomes of decisions made by individuals versus groups. We estimate the distribution of guesses conditional on whether they were made by individual bettors or betting pools. We...

We use instrumental variables methods to disentangle the effect of founder-CEOs on performance from the effect of performance on founder-CEO status. Our instruments for founder-CEO status are the proportion of the firm's founders that are dead and the number of people who founded the company. We...