We use firms’ discretionary choices in the CEO pay ratio disclosure to examine corporate decisions under social pressure. Reported pay ratios are significantly lower when firms use complex methods to identify the median employee, whose total pay is the denominator in the ratio. Firms choose...

We use a hand-collected sample of 1,628 S&P 1500 firms and more than 12,000 executives to examine how family firms compensate nonfamily executives. Family firms comprise a large percentage of firms around the world, and most of their executives are not members of the founding family. Moreover,...

In this article, we study the role of financial advisors in successful corporate acquisitions through tender offers. Our analysis distinguishes the advisor's role on the basis of whether the advisor's client is the target or the bidder. We document systematic patterns in takeover deal...

We examine how incentive compensation for nonfamily executives in family firms differs from incentive compensation for executives in nonfamily firms. Nonfamily executives in family firms receive significantly less performance-based pay and equity-based pay. Family monitoring, risk aversion, and...

This paper examines the relationship between investment bank participation in public debt exchange offers by financially distressed firms and the composition of the offer. Investment banks negotiate with bondholders on behalf of the firm, act as dealer manager for the exchange, promote the...

We examine how CEO tenure and board characteristics affect board monitoring, CEO turnover, and firm performance. We find that board meeting frequency declines as CEO tenure increases and the board has a greater proportion of insiders. The intensity of both relations varies by industry. Tenured...

We analyze simultaneously the determinants of governance, debt, and activist institutional ownership as a system of three equations. We find that governance relates positively to activist institutional ownership, but has no relation with leverage. Leverage is negatively related to governance and...

This article investigates the stock market portfolios of insurance company portfolio managers and compares the characteristics of their equity holdings with those of other (noninsurance) institutional equity portfolios. The main finding is that the cross-sectional determinants documented by...

We use a system of equations to investigate the endogenous relation between Ramp;D investment and CEO compensation. Growth opportunity is positively related to the use of stock options. Stock options positively affect Ramp;D while restricted stock has a negative influence. These results suggest...