We define annual shareholder meetings as contentious if one or more ballot items are likely to obtain sufficient shareholder votes to induce a firm to implement governance changes. Using a sample of almost 28,000 meetings between 2003 and 2012, we find that abnormal stock returns over the 40-day period prior to contentious meetings are significantly positive and higher than prior to non-content...

As a first step towards understanding the evolution of small groups in firms, this paper develops and tests a simple decision-theoretic model of research-unit evolution in which, as managers resolve their uncertainty over time, they shut down under-performing units and remove under-performing unit heads. The selection process generates several testable hypotheses about how unit and head charact...

This paper studies the effect of product market competition on the explicit compensation packages that firms offer to their CEOs, executives and workers. We use a large sample of both traded and non-traded UK firms and exploit a quasi-natural experiment associated to an increase in competition. The sudden appreciation of the pound in 1996 implied different changes in competition for sectors wit...

We study optimal contracting in team settings where agents have many opportunities to shirk, task-level monitoring is needed to provide useful incentives, and it is difficult to write individual performance into formal contracts. Incentives are provided informally, using wasteful sanctions like guilt and shame, or slowed promotion. These features give rise to optimal contracts with underperform...

This paper investigates a method for achieving timing accuracy of approximately 3ns using low-cost, low-power components suitable for use in embedded systems. After developing an error model and a prototype costing $440 and consisting of an Oncore M12+ GPS receiver, an uncompensated 33MHz oscillator, and an Altera Cyclone Programmable Logic Device, testing indicated shortterm frequency stabilit...

We compute next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the CP asymmetry afs = Im(Γ12/M12) in flavour-specific Bd,s decays such as Bd → Xlνl or Bs → D − s π . The corrections reduce the uncertainties associated with the choice of the renormalization scheme for the quark masses significantly. In the Standard Model we predict afs = −(4.4± 0.9)× 10 . As a by-product we also obtain the width difference...

Two homologous series of cyclically twinned sulphosalt structures are defined in the present paper, with different atomic configurations around the site of sixand threefold axes. The zinckenite homologous series, M6+x+N(N+S) A12+N(N+7), contains zinckenite, a Pb-Sb sulphosalt, and sulphohalogenides of Bi and Pb. The Ba Bi sulphide homologous series, M12+x+N(N+S) A18+N(N+7), contains complex sul...

The eigenvalues and mixing angles in the Zee model are investigated parameterindependently. When we require |∆m12/∆m23| 1 in order to understand the solar and atmospheric data simultaneously, the only solution is one which gives bi-maximal mixing. It is pointed out that the present best-fit value of sin 2θsolar in the MSW LMA solution cannot be explained within the framework of the Zee model, b...