CGRI research spans these topics: general principles, board of directors, leadership and succession planning, compensation, audit and risk, shareholders, and proxy advisory.
CEO Succession: Data
This Quick Guide provides data and statistics on the attributes of the CEOs and CEO succession events at publicly traded companies in the United…
How Much Should We Trust Staggered Difference-In-Differences Estimates?
We explain when and how staggered difference-in-differences regression estimators, commonly applied to assess the impact of policy changes, are…
Independent and Outside Directors
This Research Spotlight provides a summary of the academic literature on outside (non-executive) directors and directors who are independent…
Independent Chairman
This Research Spotlight provides a summary of the academic literature on whether companies with an independent chairman of the board exhibit…
Firing and Hiring the CEO: What Does CEO Turnover Data Tell Us About Succession Planning?
We examine CEO turnover and succession planning using a unique and highly comprehensive data set from the company exechange. Exechange applies a…
Seven Myths of ESG
The trend to incorporate Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) matters into corporate boardrooms and capital markets is pervasive.…
Are Narcissistic CEOs All That Bad?
The role that a CEO’s personality plays in corporate outcomes is a topic of considerable interest, particularly the relation between narcissistic…
The General Counsel View of ESG Risk
In this Closer Look, we examine the General Counsel perspective of Environmental, Social, and Governance matters. General Counsel offer an…
Stock-Option Financing in Pre-IPO Companies
In this Closer Look, we examine a new industry that has arisen in recent years to facilitate the financing of stock-option exercises for employees…
Human Capital Disclosure: What Do Companies Say about Their “Most Important Asset”?
In 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission revised human capital disclosure rules to improve shareholder understanding of how human capital…
Financial Flexibility and Corporate Employment
We study the role of financial flexibility on COVID-19 employment actions. Using daily data from March through May 2020 for 354 of the largest U.S…
Protests from Within: Engaging with Employee Activists
Recent years have witnessed a growing trend of stakeholder issues becoming prominent in discussions of corporate governance. One source of this…
Gaming the System: Three “Red Flags” of Potential 10b5-1 Abuse
The SEC adopted Rule 10b5-1 to provide an affirmative defense against allegations of insider trading to executives whose jobs regularly expose…
Corporate Governance Matters: A Closer Look at Organizational Choices and Their Consequences (3rd Edition)
The Definitive Guide to High-Performance Corporate Governance
Fully updated for the latest research, trends, and regulations, Corporate…
Environmental Spinoffs: The Attempt to Dump Liability Through Spin and Bankruptcy
Environmental costs are a legal obligation of companies and proper corporate governance requires that they be dealt with responsibly.…
Alternative Models of Governance
Other organizational structures exist besides public corporations. Examples include family-controlled businesses, venture-backed companies,…
Sharing the Pain: How Did Boards Adjust CEO Pay in Response to COVID-19?
Scrutiny of CEO pay increases during times of economic stress, when it is not clear how much pay CEOs should receive when corporate profitability…
Political Connections and the Informativeness of Insider Trades
We analyze the trading of corporate insiders at leading financial institutions during the 2007 to 2009 financial crisis. We find strong evidence…
Blindsided by Social Risk: How Do Companies Survive a Storm of Their Own Making?
Our concept of risk continues to broaden and now includes instances in which representatives of a company make statements, actions, or decisions…
The Spread of COVID-19 Disclosure
Investors rely on corporate disclosure to make informed decisions about the value of companies they invest in. The COVID-19 pandemic provides a…
Board Composition, Quality, & Turnover
This Research Spotlight provides a summary of the academic literature on board composition, quality, and turnover. It reviews the evidence of:…
Diversity in the C-Suite
There has been a broad push in recent years to increase diversity at the board and CEO levels of public corporations. Despite this effort,…
The First Outside Director
Little is known about the process by which pre-IPO companies select independent, outside board members — directors unaffiliated with the company…
Governance of Corporate Insider Equity Trades
Corporate executives receive a considerable portion of their compensation in the form of equity and, from time to time, sell a portion of their…