We examine the relationship between protracted CEO successions and stock returns. In protracted successions, an incumbent CEO announces his or her resignation without a known successor, so the incumbent CEO becomes a “lame duck.” We find that 31% of CEO successions from 2005 to 2014 in the...

This paper examines the determinants of board compensation in a developing economy that adopts a two-tier board structure system. Corporate governance structure, firm-specific characteristics, and firm performance are hypothesized as significant determinants. The sample consists of 442 firm-year...

Using a large sample of U.S. acquiring and non-acquiring firms and covering a broad sample of transactions, we examine the effects of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) on CEO compensation during 1993-2006, a period of intense M&A activity. We alleviate endogeneity concerns through dynamic panel...

This paper estimates the effects of Say-on-Pay (SoP); a policy that increases shareholder “voice” by providing shareholders with a regular vote on executive pay. We apply a regression discontinuity design to the votes on shareholder-sponsored SoP proposals. Adopting SoP leads to large...

In many advanced countries, most outside directors are executives, active or retired, at other firms; in other words, executives from other companies make executive compensation decisions. This situation may hinder the board of directors (BOD) in their efforts to optimize executive compensation...

CEOs of public (listed) firms earn more than their counterparts in similar private (unlisted) firms. This can either be because rent extraction is easier in public firms than in private firms, or because managing a public firm involves more legal and institutional responsibilities than managing...

We explore the effect of institutional directors on Chief Executive Officer (CEO) pay (total, fixed, and variable compensation). We delve particularly into the impact of pressure-sensitive and pressure-resistant institutional directors, who, respectively, represent institutional investors who...

We study the market for CEOs of large publicly-traded US firms, analyze new CEOs' prior connections to the hiring firm, and explore how hiring choices are determined. Firms are hiring from a surprisingly small pool of candidates. More than 80% of new CEOs are insiders, defined as current or...

Board room quotas have recently received an increasing amount of attention. This paper provides novel evidence on firm performance from an exogenous change in female board participation in Sweden. We use the credible threat, aimed at listed firms, of a quota law enacted by the Swedish deputy...

Using a sample of target firms that do not delist from the stock market after a majority takeover, we investigate the effect of the target CEO's departure on their firms' subsequent financial performance. We find that CEO departures have a positive effect on the target firms' long-run operating...