This study examines whether personal liability for corporate malfeasance deters individuals from serving as independent directors. Exploiting the introduction of personal liability in India, we find that personal liability deters individuals from serving on corporate boards. We find stronger...

Entrepreneurial finance literature has highlighted that institutional investors are the main contributors to private equity funds. This paper complements these findings by documenting that institutional investors also invest directly in private equity. A major concern for such investments is the...

We investigate contributions of independent directors to shareholder value by examining stock price reactions to sudden deaths in the U.S. from 1994 to 2007. We find, first, that following director death, stock prices drop by 0.85% on average. Second, the degree of independence and board...

The entrepreneurial finance literature has highlighted that institutional investors are the main contributors to private equity funds. This paper complements these findings by documenting that institutional investors also invest directly in private equity. A major concern for such investments is...

Exploiting the unique institutional setting of Hong Kong's real estate market, we uncover a curious ripple effect of haunted houses on the prices of nearby houses. Prices drop on average 20% for units that become haunted, 10% for units on the same floor, 7% for units in the same block, and 1%...

We explore the impact of health shocks on criminal behavior. Exploiting variations in the timing of cancer diagnoses, we find that health shocks elicit an increase in the probability of committing crime by 13%. This response is economically significant at both the extensive (first-time...

Constructing compensation schemes for effort in multi-dimensional tasks is complex, particularly when some dimensions are not easily observable. When incentive schemes contractually reward workers for easily observed measures, such as quantity produced, the standard model predicts that...