Many governance reform proposals are based on the view that boards have been too friendly to executives, for example, by awarding them excessive pay. Although boards are often on friendly terms with executives, it is less clear that they have systematically failed to function in the interests of...

Many governance reform proposals are based on the view that boards have been too friendly to executives, for example, by awarding them excessive pay. Although boards are often on friendly terms with executives, it is less clear that they have systematically failed to function in the interests of...

This paper analyzes the consequences of the board's dual role as an advisor as well as a monitor of management. As a result of this dual role, the CEO faces a trade-off in disclosing information to the board. On the one hand, if he reveals his information, he gets better advice. On the other...

Can female directors help save economies and the firms on whose boards they sit? Policy makers seem to think so. Numerous countries have implemented boardroom gender policies because of business case arguments. While women may be the key to healthy economies, I argue that more research needs to...

Boards of directors are intellectually interesting; the literature on boards has academic impact, and there is substantial scope for this literature to have policy impact. I illustrate these points by combining a select review of the literature with evidence from a variety of data sets. Boards...

Boardroom diversity policies link societal and corporate governance objectives. To understand whether they can meet both objectives, we argue one must understand why female directors are relatively underrepresented. We document that boardroom diversity is lower than most surveys suggest. We then...

Around the world, policy makers are mandating gender quotas for boards of publicly-traded firms. Since the benefits and costs of these quotas accrue to shareholders, it is important to see how they react to the appointment of female directors. Using data on mandatory announcements of new...

This chapter documents some little known features of bank governance involving bank boards and describes regulation and laws that are likely to influence bank governance. It also describes how organizational form and activities of banks may influence bank boards and provides some new evidence on...