To examine whether outside (or independent) directors monitor management in the shareholder interest, the authors collect Japanese companies that experience 33 per cent or more performance declines during the financial crisis (for the 2008 accounting year) and investigate how board independence...

Previous studies offer evidence that foreign investors invest less money in countries or firms with weak corporate governance structures (Aggarwal et al. 2005; Dahlquist et al. 2003; Kim et al. 2010; Leuz et al. 2009). Investigating Japanese companies that go public during the 1997-2002 period, we find that...

This paper investigates whether stock option grants increase managerial risk taking in Japan by using intraday stock return data as well as daily stock return data and yearly financial data. As with previous US studies, we find that firms that announce stock option grants experience...

This paper compares the reaction of bidders' stock prices to acquisition announcements by regulated non-financial firms, banks, and unregulated companies in Japan. Results suggest that regulated non-financial firms do not experience a significant stock price response at M&A announcements,...

Previous studies have investigated the argument that corporate governance structures in emerging markets affected firms' stock price performance during the East Asian economic crisis. In this chapter, we analyze how corporate governance structures in an industrial country (Japan) affect firms'...

Japanese firms that have traditionally had large boards have recently become subject to pressures for small boards. This study shows that Japanese firms that substantially decreased board size tended to adopt an officer system and so did not substantially decrease the size of the management team...

Recently in Japan, the Banks' Shareholdings Restriction Law requires that banks substantially decrease shareholdings. This study examines firms that experienced a 5% or greater reduction in percentage ownership by banks for a year during 2001–2004. Results show that those firms improve their...