We examine how dividend policy is used to mitigate potential conflicts of interest between majority and minority shareholders in private Norwegian firms. The average payout is 50% higher if the majority shareholder’s equity stake is 55% (high conflict potential) rather than 95% (low conflict potential). Such minority-friendly payout is also associated with higher subsequent minority shareholder investment. These results suggest that controlling shareholders voluntarily use dividends to reduce agency conflicts and build trust, rather than opportunistically preferring private benefits to dividends. We show that our results are unlikely to arise from liquidity or signaling motives.
{"title":"Shareholder Conflicts and Dividends","authors":"J. Bērziņš, Øyvind Bøhren, Bogdan Stacescu","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3039401","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3039401","url":null,"abstract":"We examine how dividend policy is used to mitigate potential conflicts of interest between majority and minority shareholders in private Norwegian firms. The average payout is 50% higher if the majority shareholder’s equity stake is 55% (high conflict potential) rather than 95% (low conflict potential). Such minority-friendly payout is also associated with higher subsequent minority shareholder investment. These results suggest that controlling shareholders voluntarily use dividends to reduce agency conflicts and build trust, rather than opportunistically preferring private benefits to dividends. We show that our results are unlikely to arise from liquidity or signaling motives.","PeriodicalId":440695,"journal":{"name":"Corporate Governance: Actors & Players eJournal","volume":"292 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117329526","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Under the current context of (re)concentrated ownership, institutional shareholders are expected to play a more active role in corporate settings in making managers more accountable and urging them to favour a long-term view. Calls from institutional investors for engagement with the board have grown and private dialogue with directors is now an important instrument of institutional investor activism. In spite of this favourable trend, director-shareholder dialogue is still problematic. Public disclosure and insider trading rules set legal constraints on board-shareholder engagement. However, the reach of these constraints should not be overstated, as they do not appear to ban outright all private dialogue between directors and shareholders. In this regard, recommendations within corporate governance and stewardship codes, and from practitioners, have played a major role in developing a practical framework for director-shareholder dialogue that seeks to prevent the violation of insider trading and public disclosure rules, and to make dialogue more effective. Against this backdrop, this article will provide a comparative transatlantic overview of recent developments in the area of director-institutional shareholder dialogue in the US and in Europe with the aim of assessing the effective reach of legal constraints on board-shareholder dialogue under current legislation, and considering some practical solutions offered by corporate governance and stewardship codes that could facilitate board-shareholder engagement and enhance its effectiveness.
{"title":"Knocking at the Boardroom Door: A Transatlantic Overview of Director-Institutional Investor Engagement in Law and Practice","authors":"G. Strampelli","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.3044278","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.3044278","url":null,"abstract":"Under the current context of (re)concentrated ownership, institutional shareholders are expected to play a more active role in corporate settings in making managers more accountable and urging them to favour a long-term view. Calls from institutional investors for engagement with the board have grown and private dialogue with directors is now an important instrument of institutional investor activism. In spite of this favourable trend, director-shareholder dialogue is still problematic. Public disclosure and insider trading rules set legal constraints on board-shareholder engagement. However, the reach of these constraints should not be overstated, as they do not appear to ban outright all private dialogue between directors and shareholders. In this regard, recommendations within corporate governance and stewardship codes, and from practitioners, have played a major role in developing a practical framework for director-shareholder dialogue that seeks to prevent the violation of insider trading and public disclosure rules, and to make dialogue more effective. Against this backdrop, this article will provide a comparative transatlantic overview of recent developments in the area of director-institutional shareholder dialogue in the US and in Europe with the aim of assessing the effective reach of legal constraints on board-shareholder dialogue under current legislation, and considering some practical solutions offered by corporate governance and stewardship codes that could facilitate board-shareholder engagement and enhance its effectiveness.","PeriodicalId":440695,"journal":{"name":"Corporate Governance: Actors & Players eJournal","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122692865","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Regulatory focus theory suggests that individuals tend to self-regulate through either a promotion focus or a prevention focus. A promotion-focused individual has an eagerness strategy, concerned with advancement and growth. A prevention-focused individual has a vigilance strategy, concerned with security and stability. I examine how the CEO’s regulatory focus impacts the mean adoption time of a formalized management control system (MCS) for early-stage firms. I posit that promotion-focused CEOs adopt MCS faster than prevention-focused CEOs, although the difference in adoption rate will be eliminated by the presence of outsider funding (equity or debt). I test the hypothesis using data from a field survey that resulted in a 2 x 2 between-subjects design. As predicted, there is no difference in the mean adoption time for promotion and prevention-focused CEOs when outsider funding is present, suggesting outsider funding mitigates a prevention-focused CEO’s cautious tendency when allocating resources to implement new control systems.
{"title":"The Impact of CEO Regulatory Focus on the Adoption of Management Control Systems in Early-Stage Firms","authors":"Jennifer M. Cainas","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3022367","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3022367","url":null,"abstract":"Regulatory focus theory suggests that individuals tend to self-regulate through either a promotion focus or a prevention focus. A promotion-focused individual has an eagerness strategy, concerned with advancement and growth. A prevention-focused individual has a vigilance strategy, concerned with security and stability. I examine how the CEO’s regulatory focus impacts the mean adoption time of a formalized management control system (MCS) for early-stage firms. I posit that promotion-focused CEOs adopt MCS faster than prevention-focused CEOs, although the difference in adoption rate will be eliminated by the presence of outsider funding (equity or debt). I test the hypothesis using data from a field survey that resulted in a 2 x 2 between-subjects design. As predicted, there is no difference in the mean adoption time for promotion and prevention-focused CEOs when outsider funding is present, suggesting outsider funding mitigates a prevention-focused CEO’s cautious tendency when allocating resources to implement new control systems.","PeriodicalId":440695,"journal":{"name":"Corporate Governance: Actors & Players eJournal","volume":"61 3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123298347","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Critiques of specific investor behavior often assume an ideal investor against which all others should be compared. This ideal investor figures prominently in the heated debates over the impact of investor time horizons on firm value. In much of the commentary, the ideal is a long-term investor that actively monitors management, but the specifics are typically left vague. That is no coincidence. The various characteristics that we might wish for in such an investor cannot peacefully coexist in practice. If the ideal investor remains illusory, which of the real-world investor types should we champion instead? The answer, I argue, is none. The corporate finance ecosystem evolves at such a rapid pace that interventions specifically designed to encourage particular types of investors are increasingly likely to be ineffective or even counterproductive: we are destined to place our bets on the wrong horse, time and again. To illustrate the difficulty, this Article briefly sketches the evolution of three types of shareholders frequently advanced as exemplars based on their time horizons: major mutual fund groups, activist hedge funds, and private equity funds. Based on their behavior to date, there is little support for policies aimed either at favoring or penalizing such investors’ participation in the capital markets generally, and corporate governance specifically.
{"title":"Symposium Article: The Myth of the Ideal Investor","authors":"Elisabeth de Fontenay","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3165630","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3165630","url":null,"abstract":"Critiques of specific investor behavior often assume an ideal investor against which all others should be compared. This ideal investor figures prominently in the heated debates over the impact of investor time horizons on firm value. In much of the commentary, the ideal is a long-term investor that actively monitors management, but the specifics are typically left vague. That is no coincidence. The various characteristics that we might wish for in such an investor cannot peacefully coexist in practice. If the ideal investor remains illusory, which of the real-world investor types should we champion instead? The answer, I argue, is none. The corporate finance ecosystem evolves at such a rapid pace that interventions specifically designed to encourage particular types of investors are increasingly likely to be ineffective or even counterproductive: we are destined to place our bets on the wrong horse, time and again. To illustrate the difficulty, this Article briefly sketches the evolution of three types of shareholders frequently advanced as exemplars based on their time horizons: major mutual fund groups, activist hedge funds, and private equity funds. Based on their behavior to date, there is little support for policies aimed either at favoring or penalizing such investors’ participation in the capital markets generally, and corporate governance specifically.","PeriodicalId":440695,"journal":{"name":"Corporate Governance: Actors & Players eJournal","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121221396","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
With the increasing concentration of shares in the hands of large institutional investors, combined with greater involvement in corporate governance, the antitrust risk of common ownership has moved to center stage. Through an excess of enthusiasm, portfolio managers could end up exposing their firms and the portfolio companies to huge antitrust liability. In this Article, we start from basic antitrust principles to sketch out an antitrust compliance program for institutional investors and for the investor relations groups in portfolio companies. In doing so, we address the fundamental antitrust issues (explicit and tacit coordination) raised by the presence of common ownership by large, diversified investors. We then turn to more speculative concerns that have garnered a great deal of attention and that, to our eyes, threaten to divert attention from the core antitrust issues. We critically examine the claims of this newer literature, as illustrated by Azar, Schmaltz and Tecu (2017), that existing ownership patterns in the airline industry results in substantially higher prices. We then turn to the argument in Elhauge (2016) that existing ownership patterns violate Section 7 of the Clayton Act. Finally, we find the policy recommendations of Posner, Scott Morton, and Weyl (2017) to limit the ownership shares of multiple firms in oligopolistic industries to be overly stringent. To limit the chilling effect of antitrust on the valuable role of institutional investors in corporate governance, we propose a quasi “safe harbor” that protects investors from antitrust liability when their ownership share is less than 15 percent, the investors have no board representation, and they only engage in “normal” corporate governance activities.
{"title":"Antitrust for Institutional Investors","authors":"Edward B. Rock, D. Rubinfeld","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2998296","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2998296","url":null,"abstract":"With the increasing concentration of shares in the hands of large institutional investors, combined with greater involvement in corporate governance, the antitrust risk of common ownership has moved to center stage. Through an excess of enthusiasm, portfolio managers could end up exposing their firms and the portfolio companies to huge antitrust liability. In this Article, we start from basic antitrust principles to sketch out an antitrust compliance program for institutional investors and for the investor relations groups in portfolio companies. In doing so, we address the fundamental antitrust issues (explicit and tacit coordination) raised by the presence of common ownership by large, diversified investors. \u0000We then turn to more speculative concerns that have garnered a great deal of attention and that, to our eyes, threaten to divert attention from the core antitrust issues. We critically examine the claims of this newer literature, as illustrated by Azar, Schmaltz and Tecu (2017), that existing ownership patterns in the airline industry results in substantially higher prices. We then turn to the argument in Elhauge (2016) that existing ownership patterns violate Section 7 of the Clayton Act. Finally, we find the policy recommendations of Posner, Scott Morton, and Weyl (2017) to limit the ownership shares of multiple firms in oligopolistic industries to be overly stringent. To limit the chilling effect of antitrust on the valuable role of institutional investors in corporate governance, we propose a quasi “safe harbor” that protects investors from antitrust liability when their ownership share is less than 15 percent, the investors have no board representation, and they only engage in “normal” corporate governance activities.","PeriodicalId":440695,"journal":{"name":"Corporate Governance: Actors & Players eJournal","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130633705","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The classic agency literature including Jensen and Meckling (1976) and many other theory papers suggests mutual monitoring between top executives can mitigate agency problems. In this framework, I empirically test whether the number two executive in a firm could possibly mitigate the agency problems of the CEO. While CEO has always been the focus in corporate finance, little has been done on the No. 2 executive. This paper promotes a comprehensive understanding of this group of executives and their important roles in mutual monitoring. The analysis yields four classes of results: (1) mutual monitoring improves firm value; (2) the effect is stronger for firms with weaker corporate governance or CEO incentive alignment, and (3) more important in the post-SOX environment; (4) mutual monitoring reduces the CEO's ability to pursue "quiet life" but has no effect on "empire building." The results suggest that the board should encourage mutual monitoring, as a supplement to board direct monitoring, to mitigate agency problems.
{"title":"Mutual Monitoring and Agency Problems","authors":"Zhichuan Frank Li","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1760579","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1760579","url":null,"abstract":"The classic agency literature including Jensen and Meckling (1976) and many other theory papers suggests mutual monitoring between top executives can mitigate agency problems. In this framework, I empirically test whether the number two executive in a firm could possibly mitigate the agency problems of the CEO. While CEO has always been the focus in corporate finance, little has been done on the No. 2 executive. This paper promotes a comprehensive understanding of this group of executives and their important roles in mutual monitoring. The analysis yields four classes of results: (1) mutual monitoring improves firm value; (2) the effect is stronger for firms with weaker corporate governance or CEO incentive alignment, and (3) more important in the post-SOX environment; (4) mutual monitoring reduces the CEO's ability to pursue \"quiet life\" but has no effect on \"empire building.\" The results suggest that the board should encourage mutual monitoring, as a supplement to board direct monitoring, to mitigate agency problems.","PeriodicalId":440695,"journal":{"name":"Corporate Governance: Actors & Players eJournal","volume":"69 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132506419","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We explore the influence of the localness of independent directors on Chinese listed firms' fraudulent and non-compliant practices. We are motivated by the dynamics between monitoring and favoritism—the moving parts driving the association between geographic proximity and monitoring outcomes. In our analysis of A-share listed firms in China between 2007 and 2013, we find that local independent directors at both the provincial and the city-levels reduce the frequency and magnitude of the misconduct by listed firms. Furthermore, the monitoring effect is stronger for independent directors who are in the same province/different city than those in the same province/same city, which suggests that while the monitoring effect of localness remains constant, the favoritism effect is stronger for independent directors who reside in the same city. We also find that political connections negatively moderate the effect of local independent directors' monitoring function, especially with non-state-owned firms. Data Availability: All data are available from public databases and annual reports of listed firms identified in the paper, except for the CSMAR data, which are available from the company upon request.
{"title":"Do Locally-Based Independent Directors Reduce Corporate Misconduct?","authors":"Claire Deng, K. Kanagaretnam, Zejiang Zhou","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2897914","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2897914","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 We explore the influence of the localness of independent directors on Chinese listed firms' fraudulent and non-compliant practices. We are motivated by the dynamics between monitoring and favoritism—the moving parts driving the association between geographic proximity and monitoring outcomes. In our analysis of A-share listed firms in China between 2007 and 2013, we find that local independent directors at both the provincial and the city-levels reduce the frequency and magnitude of the misconduct by listed firms. Furthermore, the monitoring effect is stronger for independent directors who are in the same province/different city than those in the same province/same city, which suggests that while the monitoring effect of localness remains constant, the favoritism effect is stronger for independent directors who reside in the same city. We also find that political connections negatively moderate the effect of local independent directors' monitoring function, especially with non-state-owned firms.\u0000 Data Availability: All data are available from public databases and annual reports of listed firms identified in the paper, except for the CSMAR data, which are available from the company upon request.","PeriodicalId":440695,"journal":{"name":"Corporate Governance: Actors & Players eJournal","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128647566","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
U. Khan, Bin Li, Shivaram Rajgopal, M. Venkatachalam
ABSTRACT: We examine the cost-effectiveness, from the shareholders' perspective, of the accounting standards issued by the FASB during 1973–2009. We evaluate (1) the stock market reactions of firms affected by the standards surrounding events that changed the standard's probability of issuance; and (2) whether the market reactions are related, in the cross-section, to agency problems, information asymmetry, proprietary costs, contracting costs, and changes in estimation risk. The average standard is a non-event from the investors' perspective because 104 of the 138 standards examined are associated with no change in shareholder value. Nineteen (15) standards are associated with a decrease (increase) in shareholder value. Surprisingly, 25 standards are associated with an increase in estimation risk. In the cross-section, firms with higher levels of information asymmetry, lower contracting costs, and a decrease in estimation risk experience most positive returns.
{"title":"Do the FASB's Standards Add Shareholder Value?","authors":"U. Khan, Bin Li, Shivaram Rajgopal, M. Venkatachalam","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2947463","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2947463","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT: We examine the cost-effectiveness, from the shareholders' perspective, of the accounting standards issued by the FASB during 1973–2009. We evaluate (1) the stock market reactions of firms affected by the standards surrounding events that changed the standard's probability of issuance; and (2) whether the market reactions are related, in the cross-section, to agency problems, information asymmetry, proprietary costs, contracting costs, and changes in estimation risk. The average standard is a non-event from the investors' perspective because 104 of the 138 standards examined are associated with no change in shareholder value. Nineteen (15) standards are associated with a decrease (increase) in shareholder value. Surprisingly, 25 standards are associated with an increase in estimation risk. In the cross-section, firms with higher levels of information asymmetry, lower contracting costs, and a decrease in estimation risk experience most positive returns.","PeriodicalId":440695,"journal":{"name":"Corporate Governance: Actors & Players eJournal","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-04-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124200078","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Scholars engage in extensive debate about the role of families and corporations in economic growth. Some propose that personal ties provide a mechanism for overcoming such transactions costs as asymmetrical information, while others regard familial connections as conduits for inefficiency, with the potential for nepotism, corruption and exploitation of other stakeholders. This empirical study is based on a unique panel dataset comprising all of the shareholders in a sample of early corporations, including information on such characteristics as gender, age, occupation, household composition, real estate holdings and personal wealth. Related investing was widespread among directors and elite shareholders, but was also pervasive among women and small shareholders. Personal ties were especially evident among ordinary investors in the newer, riskier ventures, and helped to ensure persistence in shareholding. “Outsider investors” were able to overcome a lack of experience and information by taking advantage of their own networks. The link between related investing and the concentration of ownership in these corporations suggests that this phenomenon was likely associated with a reduction in perceptions of risk, especially beneficial for capital mobilization in emerging ventures. These patterns are consistent with a more productive interpretation of related investing and its function in newly developing societies.
{"title":"Related Investing: Corporate Ownership and Capital Mobilization During Early Industrialization","authors":"B. Khan","doi":"10.3386/W23052","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3386/W23052","url":null,"abstract":"Scholars engage in extensive debate about the role of families and corporations in economic growth. Some propose that personal ties provide a mechanism for overcoming such transactions costs as asymmetrical information, while others regard familial connections as conduits for inefficiency, with the potential for nepotism, corruption and exploitation of other stakeholders. This empirical study is based on a unique panel dataset comprising all of the shareholders in a sample of early corporations, including information on such characteristics as gender, age, occupation, household composition, real estate holdings and personal wealth. Related investing was widespread among directors and elite shareholders, but was also pervasive among women and small shareholders. Personal ties were especially evident among ordinary investors in the newer, riskier ventures, and helped to ensure persistence in shareholding. “Outsider investors” were able to overcome a lack of experience and information by taking advantage of their own networks. The link between related investing and the concentration of ownership in these corporations suggests that this phenomenon was likely associated with a reduction in perceptions of risk, especially beneficial for capital mobilization in emerging ventures. These patterns are consistent with a more productive interpretation of related investing and its function in newly developing societies.","PeriodicalId":440695,"journal":{"name":"Corporate Governance: Actors & Players eJournal","volume":"84 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124424284","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Motivated by the debate on gender inequality, we study CEO gender and CEO age. Because women face significantly more obstacles in advancing their careers, it may take them longer to reach the top position, i.e. the chief executive officer (CEO). If this is the case, female CEOs should be older than their male counterparts on average. Our evidence shows that female CEOs are actually younger on average, approximately two full years younger than male CEOs, after controlling for firm and board characteristics. The two-year difference represents as much as 26% of the standard deviation in CEO age.
{"title":"CEO Age and CEO Gender: Are Female CEOs Older Than Their Male Counterparts?","authors":"Pradit Withisuphakorn, P. Jiraporn","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2891911","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2891911","url":null,"abstract":"Motivated by the debate on gender inequality, we study CEO gender and CEO age. Because women face significantly more obstacles in advancing their careers, it may take them longer to reach the top position, i.e. the chief executive officer (CEO). If this is the case, female CEOs should be older than their male counterparts on average. Our evidence shows that female CEOs are actually younger on average, approximately two full years younger than male CEOs, after controlling for firm and board characteristics. The two-year difference represents as much as 26% of the standard deviation in CEO age.","PeriodicalId":440695,"journal":{"name":"Corporate Governance: Actors & Players eJournal","volume":"67 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125252362","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}