Shareholder activism is an important source of corporate governance. Using a dynamic regression discontinuity design on shareholder proposals that pass or fail by a small margin of votes in shareholder meetings, we analyze the effect of shareholder-initiated corporate governance on earnings...

Using different U.S. states’ staggered adoption of a legislative change that makes it easier for shareholders to compel firms to switch to a majority voting system, we find that this legislation leads to more income-increasing earnings management. This finding is consistent with firms...