Do staggered (or classified) boards harm shareholder value through entrenchment or help through stability? In a forthcoming RCFS paper, “Staggered Boards and the Value of Voting Rights,” Oğuzhan Karakaş and Mahdi Mohseni revisit this question by using a novel methodology and provide causal evidence on the entrenchment view of staggered boards. Existence of staggered boards, where only a fraction of board members is up for election in a year, has… Read More »Paper Spotlight: Staggered Boards and the Value of Voting Rights

Differences in their objective functions lead to possible conflicts of interests between various stakeholders of firms; e.g., between shareholders and employees. These conflicts are more likely to manifest when firms face important investment or governance decisions, specifically, at times of mergers and acquisitions. How does the power of a firm’s labor force affect its exposure and gains in takeovers? In a forthcoming RCFS paper, “Hard Marriage with Heavy Burdens: Organized… Read More »Paper Spotlight: Hard Marriage with Heavy Burdens: Organized Labor as Takeover Deterrents

“How do Capital Requirements Affect Loan Rates? Evidence from High Volatility Commercial Real Estate” by David P. Glancy and Robert J. Kurtzman “Golden Handcuffs and Corporate Innovation: Evidence from Defined Benefit Pension Plans” by Huu Nhan Duong, Bin Qiu, and S. Ghon Rhee

“Effect of the Equity Capital Ratio on the Relationship between Competition and Bank Risk-taking Behavior” by Kuncheng Zheng and Jia Hao

It is not just managers that can have a short-term orientation—the forthcoming theoretical paper “Competition for Flow and Short-Termism in Activism,” by Mike Burkart and Amil Dasgupta, shows that activist funds too can focus on the short term. In the model, activists add value by preventing wastage by the manager. To signal their type to their own investors, they take a short-term action such as boosting leverage to make a… Read More »Paper Spotlight: Competition for Flow and Short-Termism in Activism