This paper studies the extent to which risk-taking incentives of CEOs and other governance features in a range of years prior to the recent financial crisis were related to the write-downs of U.S. financial institutions during the crisis. We document that institutions whose CEOs had particularly...

This paper analyzes board independence and competence as distinct, but inextricably linked aspects of board effectiveness. Competent directors add shareholder value because they have better information about the quality of projects. While a CEO cares about shareholder value, he also wants his...

Demand is growing for a better understanding of how assets are priced in countries outside of the U.S. While financial data are available for many firms world-wide, it is important to have a reliable and replicable method of constructing high-quality systematic risk factors from these data. This...

We establish that CEOs of companies experiencing volatile industry conditions are more likely tobe dismissed. At the same time, industry risk is, controlling for various other factors, unlikelyto be directly associated with CEO compensation other than through dismissal risk. Using...

This paper explores one potentially important channel through which immigration may drive support for extreme right-wing parties: the presence of immigrants in one's neighborhood. We study the case of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). Under the leadership of Jörg Haider, this party increased...