How do active managers engage with portfolio firms? And, what role does monitoring and engagement play in their trading decisions? We use proprietary data from a large UK active asset manager with a long-standing commitment to stewardship to...Read more
Boards are crucial to shareholder wealth. Yet, little is known about how shareholder oversight affects director incentives. Using exogenous industry shocks to institutional investor portfolios, we find that...Read more
This paper focuses on recent trends in shareholder participation in corporate governance in a number of major developed countries. Conflicting attitudes toward shareholder participation, especially in the US, have colored the underlying debate...Read more
The dialogue of the board and its chairman with investors is an established practice in many countries, such as the United Kingdom, the USA, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and recently also Germany. In the UK this dialogue covers the whole...Read more
Blockholder monitoring is central to corporate governance, but blockholders large enough to exercise significant unilateral influence are rare. Mechanisms that enable small block-holders to exert collective influence are therefore important. We...Read more
Why are shareholder empowerment and activism such controversial issues in the United States today? Other common law jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom, have welcomed and encouraged greater shareholder participation and engagement in...Read more
This paper analyzes the effect that the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision on Citizens United vs. FEC had on corporate political activism. The decision opened the door for corporate treasuries to engage in independent political spending....Read more
Do informed shareholders who can influence corporate decisions improve governance? We demonstrate this may not be generally true in a model of takeovers. The model suggests that a shareholder’s ability to collect information and trade ex post may...Read more
This paper challenges the view that foreign investors lead firms to adopt a short-term orientation and forgo long-term investment. Using a comprehensive sample of publicly listed firms in 30 countries over the 2001-2010 period, we find instead...Read more
We study the link between international stock return comovements and institutional investment. We test whether the rise of institutional ownership has increased cross-country correlations and decreased cross-industry correlations. Using stock-...Read more
Most listed firms have concentrated ownership structures. However this ownership type is problematic. A clinical analysis reveals that the corporate governance in these firms in terms of liability, voice and exit faces important design problems....Read more
Hedge fund activism has increased almost hyperbolically. Some view this optimistically as a means for bridging the separation of ownership and control; others are more pessimistic, seeing mainly wealth transfers from bondholders or speculative...Read more