Using data on the qualifications and residential locations of directors, we study boards “in practice.” We find that directors' qualifications and distance from headquarters are related to factors such as the proximity of headquarters to a large city, firm size, CEO power, and the board's...

We examine how the director independence mandates of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) and related reforms affected board geography and the quality of financial reporting. Using 1998-2006 data on the residential addresses of individual directors, we document that the geographic proximity to...