Research by the Corporate Governance Research Initiative

Between 2010 and 2017, Chinese investors used an investor interactive platform (IIP) to ask public companies around 2.5 million questions, the vast majority of which received a reply within two weeks. We analyze these IIP dialogues…

ESG ratings firms provide information to investors, analysts, and corporate managers about the relation between corporations and non-investor stakeholders interests. Recently, ESG ratings providers have come under scrutiny over concerns of the…

In this Closer Look, we use the example of VICI Properties — a publicly traded REIT that emerged from the bankruptcy of Caesar’s Entertainment — to examine how appropriate governance choices can change the course of a corporation and establish a…

This Quick Guide provides data and statistics on the attributes of the CEOs and CEO succession events at publicly traded companies in the United States. This data supplements the issues introduced in the Quick Guide “…

We explain when and how staggered difference-in-differences regression estimators, commonly applied to assess the impact of policy changes, are biased. These biases are likely to be relevant for a large portion of research settings in finance,…

This Research Spotlight provides a summary of the academic literature on whether companies with an independent chairman of the board exhibit better governance quality than companies with a dual chairman/CEO. It reviews the evidence of:

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This Research Spotlight provides a summary of the academic literature on outside (non-executive) directors and directors who are independent according to New York Stock Exchange listing requirements. It reviews the evidence of:

• …

We examine CEO turnover and succession planning using a unique and highly comprehensive data set from the company exechange. Exechange applies a novel methodology that evaluates the circumstances surrounding a CEO departure to determine the…

The trend to incorporate Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) matters into corporate boardrooms and capital markets is pervasive. Nevertheless, considerable uncertainty exists over what ESG is, how it should be implemented, and its…

The role that a CEO’s personality plays in corporate outcomes is a topic of considerable interest, particularly the relation between narcissistic CEOs and performance. Common perception is that CEO narcissism is highly prevalent, and considerable…

In this Closer Look, we examine the General Counsel perspective of Environmental, Social, and Governance matters. General Counsel offer an interesting perspective because they are charged with advising boards and companies on operating between…

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 and executives of pre-IPO companies. These capital providers allow individuals to exercise and…

In 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission revised human capital disclosure rules to improve shareholder understanding of how human capital management contributes to corporate value and strategy. In this Closer Look, we examine early…

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. employers, we find that firms facing a negative demand shock were 28.8 percentage points more…

Recent years have witnessed a growing trend of stakeholder issues becoming prominent in discussions of corporate governance. One source of this pressure comes from an unexpected constituent: the company’s own employee base. In this Closer Look,…

The SEC adopted Rule 10b5-1 to provide an affirmative defense against allegations of insider trading to executives whose jobs regularly expose them to material nonpublic information. In this Closer Look, we present evidence on the trading…

Environmental costs are a legal obligation of companies and proper corporate governance requires that they be dealt with responsibly. Unfortunately, disturbing examples exist where companies have taken aggressive action to separate their…

Other organizational structures exist besides public corporations. Examples include family-controlled businesses, venture-backed companies, private equity-owned businesses, and nonprofit organizations. Each of these faces their own issues…

Scrutiny of CEO pay increases during times of economic stress, when it is not clear how much pay CEOs should receive when corporate profitability suffers due to an unforeseen decline in the operating environment. On the one hand, the board might…

We analyze the trading of corporate insiders at leading financial institutions during the 2007 to 2009 financial crisis. We find strong evidence of a relation between political connections and informed trading during the period in which Troubled…

Our concept of risk continues to broaden and now includes instances in which representatives of a company make statements, actions, or decisions that damage the firm by inviting public scrutiny, sparking a reaction among customers, employees,…

Investors rely on corporate disclosure to make informed decisions about the value of companies they invest in. The COVID-19 pandemic provides a unique opportunity to examine disclosure practices of companies relative to peers in real time about a…

This Research Spotlight provides a summary of the academic literature on board composition, quality, and turnover. It reviews the evidence of:

• The appointment of outside CEOs as directors
• The importance of industry expertise…