The reciprocal interlocking of chief executive officers (CEOs) is a non-trivial phenomenon of the composition of boards of directors and of corporate governance: among large companies in 1991, about one company in seven was part of a relationship whereby the CEO of one company sat on a second...

The recent wave of revelations involving corporate governance problems has created significant interest in the relationships between chief executive officers (CEOs) and their boards of directors. In this paper we focus on one important but previously uninvestigated characteristic of boards: the...

Acquirers do not benefit from hiring the CEOs of firms they buy, either in terms of merger announcement returns or long-run operating performance. This is especially true when the retained CEOs exhibit inferior quality (as proxied by target firm industrial efficiency or the target CEO's...

We investigate the determinants of gains to CEOs from large stock sales. Consistent with the literature, we find that some CEOs benefit from inside information by strategically timing sales. We also find that internal accounting information can be used to predict such timing. Furthermore, sales...

We study earnings surprises disclosed hours before M&A announcements in which both merging firms operate in the same 1-digit SIC as the earnings-releasing firms. These surprises correlate with the acquirers’ M&A announcement return. Consistent with behavioral theory, one week after the M&A...

Prior research argues that universal demand (UD) laws, which weaken shareholders' litigation rights, incentivize managers to report more and better-quality information. This view relies on post-UD increases in the length and frequency of voluntary disclosure. We find that the increase in...