Agency

The Managerial labor market and the governance role of shareholder control structures in the UK

International Evidence on Cash Holdings and Expected Managerial Agency Problems

This paper uses managerial control rights data for over 5000 firms from 31 countries to examine the net costs and benefits of cash holdings. We find that...

Private Benefits of Corporate Philanthropy and Distortions to Corporate Financing and Investment Decisions

We find that corporate giving represents a private benefit of control that distorts corporate investment and financing activity, consistent with free...

Agency Theory in Practice: A Qualitative Study of Hedge Fund Activism in Japan

We look at the reaction to hedge fund activism of managers and shareholders in Japanese firms and explore the implications of our findings for agency...

Agency Conflicts, Investment, and Asset Pricing

The separation of ownership and control allows controlling shareholders to pursue private benefits. We develop an analytically tractable dynamic...

Mandatory Governance Reform and Corporate Risk Management

Using the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 as a quasi-natural experiment to identify the impact of corporate governance reform on foreign exchange risk...

Controlling Shareholders in the Twenty-First Century: Complicating Corporate Governance Beyond Agency Costs

By the end of the twentieth century, the then-dominant literature on “law and finance” assumed that concentrated ownership was a product of...

The Family Behind the Family Firm Premium: Agency Conflicts and Personal Financial Constraints

We relate the personal characteristics of the controlling family to the difference between the return on assets of all Norwegian family firms and...

Agency Costs of Overvalued Equity

Mobility Restrictions and Risk-Related Agency Conflicts

Stricter enforcement of post-employment restrictions that strengthens trade secrets protection also limits CEOs’ alternative employment...

A State-Stewardship View on Executive Compensation

We take a state-stewardship view on the corporate governance model and executive compensation policies in economies with strong political...

Deconstructing Equity: Public Ownership, Agency Costs, and Complete Capital Markets