We provide the first evidence of significant external labor market penalties when directors fail to properly oversee executive compensation. When shareholders express disapproval through low Say-On-Pay (SOP) support, equity values decrease at firms linked by a shared director (interlocking...

We provide the first evidence of external labor market penalties when directors fail to align with shareholder preferences for monitoring executive compensation. When shareholders express disapproval through low Say-On-Pay (SOP) support, directors incur significant external penalties, including...

We study the stock market's reaction to the unexpected death of a top executive or board chair for insight into grey director incentives. Whereas there is little debate as to the motives of inside and strict outside directors, the allegiance of grey directors is less certain. We find that grey...

Motivated by studies that show overconfident agents are more competitive, we test whether overconfident CEOs respond differently and perform better when competition increases. Using tariff reductions as exogenous shocks to competition and a triple-difference specification on matched samples, we...

Extant research suggests that moderate CEO optimism can be beneficial to the firm. However, little is known about how boards of directors learn the effects of CEO optimism. Evidence from psychology indicates that individuals/groups may learn more from failure than success, while a simple...