We find that the directorial labor market's ability to align the incentives of managers and shareholders depends on the aggregate level of investor protection in a country. If a country's corporate governance environment is strong and boards are likely to protect the interest of shareholders, a...

A number of prominent papers in the literature have estimated the average speed of adjustment (SOA) of firms' leverage ratios with estimators not designed for applications in which the dependent variable is a ratio. These statistics indicate mean reversion, which the papers mistakenly...

We examine how legal creditor rights are related to debt financing and corporate investment over the business cycle. Using firm-level data from 40 countries, we find that creditor rights are associated with greater debt financing and investment during economic downturns, but creditor rights have...

We test the impact of firms' corporate governance structures (G) on firms' environmental performance (E) using a sample of 3,293 firms from 41 countries. We find that better governance, measured using a variety of metrics, improves firms' environmental performance. Contemporary governance...