https://personal.lse.ac.uk/FERREIRD/gender.pdf

Women in the boardroom and their impact on governance and performance

This study surveys the literature examining the privatization of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) We review the history of privatization, the theoretical and empirical evidence on the relative performance of state owned and privately owned firms, the types of privatization, if and by how much privatization has improved the performance of former SOEs in non-transition and transition countries, how investors in privatizations have fared, and the impact of privatization on the development of capital markets and corporate governance. In most settings privatization "works" in that the firms become more efficient, more profitable, and financially healthier, and reward investors.

/pdf/from-state-to-market-a-survey-of-empirical-studies-on-54vi9aent6.pdf

From State to Market: A Survey of Empirical Studies on Privatization

The monitoring role performed by the board of directors is an important corporate governance control mechanism, especially in countries where external mechanisms are less well developed. The gender composition of the board can affect the quality of this monitoring role and thus the financial performance of the firm. This is part of the “business case” for female participation on boards, though arguments may also be framed in terms of ethical considerations. While the issue of board gender diversity has attracted growing research interest in recent years, most empirical results are based on U.S. data. This article adds to a growing number of non-U.S. studies by investigating the link between the gender diversity of the board and firm financial performance in Spain, a country which historically has had minimal female participation in the workforce, but which has now introduced legislation to improve equality of opportunities. We investigate the topic using panel data analysis and find that gender diversity – as measured by the percentage of women on the board and by the Blau and Shannon indices – has a positive effect on firm value and that the opposite causal relationship is not significant. Our study suggests that investors in Spain do not penalise firms which increase their female board membership and that greater gender diversity may generate economic gains.

Gender Diversity in the Boardroom and Firm Financial Performance

We show that female directors have a significant impact on board inputs and firm outcomes. In a sample of US firms, we find that female directors have better attendance records than male directors, male directors have fewer attendance problems the more gender-diverse the board is, and women are more likely to join monitoring committees. These results suggest that gender-diverse boards allocate more effort to monitoring. Accordingly, we find that CEO turnover is more sensitive to stock performance and directors receive more equity-based compensation in firms with more gender-diverse boards. However, the average effect of gender diversity on firm performance is negative. This negative effect is driven by companies with fewer takeover defenses. Our results suggest that mandating gender quotas for directors can reduce firm value for well-governed firms.

/pdf/women-in-the-boardroom-and-their-impact-on-governance-and-w63idep7l7.pdf

Women in the Boardroom and Their Impact on Governance and Performance

This paper is a survey of the literature on boards of directors, with an emphasis on research done subsequent to the Benjamin E. Hermalin and Michael S. Weisbach (2003) survey. The two questions most asked about boards are what determines their makeup and what determines their actions? These questions are fundamentally intertwined, which complicates the study of boards because makeup and actions are jointly endogenous. A focus of this survey is how the literature, theoretical as well as empirical, deals—or on occasions fails to deal—with this complication. We suggest that many studies of boards can best be interpreted as joint statements about both the director-selection process and the effect of board composition on board actions and firm performance. ( JEL G34, L25)

/pdf/the-role-of-boards-of-directors-in-corporate-governance-a-bnth5jodza.pdf

The Role of Boards of Directors in Corporate Governance: A Conceptual Framework and Survey

College football players are initially assigned to teams in the National Football League (NFL) through the league’s draft selection process. At each team’s turn to pick, the team has the option of exercising the pick itself or trading it to another team. If gains from trade are exhausted, draft picks should be exercised by the team with the highest expected value. That is, the expected player contribution garnered from a given pick should not be dependent on whether the pick was traded or retained. Regression results, however, indicate that controlling for a player’s draft position, when a team trades up to acquire a player, that player is more likely to have greater on-field success. This suggests that there are too few draft day trades. Plausible reasons are high transaction costs or the fear of media scrutiny that draft trades can engender.

Are there too few trades during the NFL draft

The Effects of Crime Rates on Time Served in Prison: An Empirical Analysis

General aviation turbine markets - An economic overview

Erratum to “How do firms adjust director compensation?” [Journal of Corporate Finance14 (2008) 153–162]

We analyse uniformity in the market's valuation of director human capital by comparing director compensation across firms with and without director overlaps. We find that although there is less variation in director compensation for connected boards, which share a common director, than for unrelated boards, there remains a high variation in director compensation for directors with multiple directorships. We also find that active Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), on average, command higher total director compensation in subsequent board appointments. This result holds for appointments where the individual already holds two or more directorships and is counter to the prediction of a busy director effect. Overall, our evidence suggests that active CEOs are high-quality directors or have a high disutility of additional board work and are able to command higher compensation when added to subsequent boards.

/pdf/inter-board-pay-differentials-for-directors-with-multiple-3qa94xf2oq.pdf

Philip L. Hersch

Papers

Are there too few trades during the NFL draft

The Effects of Crime Rates on Time Served in Prison: An Empirical Analysis

General aviation turbine markets - An economic overview

Erratum to “How do firms adjust director compensation?” [Journal of Corporate Finance14 (2008) 153–162]

Inter-board pay differentials for directors with multiple appointments