This paper examines a combined set of corporate governance features that influence disclosure quality in a context of ownership concentration. Agency theory presents a theoretical framework linking disclosure decision to corporate governance mechanisms. Using a Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA), we find that firms with poor disclosure quality have higher ownership concentration, are family...

I study the impact of changes in compensation disclosure on the level and structure of executive compensation. I exploit exogenous variation of compensation information among executives after a corporate governance reform in Germany in the late 2000s. The reform, for the first time in Germany, required firms to publicly disclose the individual compensation packages of key executives. Prior to t...

We investigate the relationship of audit fees, outside directors and firms’ ownership, marketing and asset structures as alternative (external versus internal) monitoring mechanisms that can be used to control incentive conflicts in costly contracting environments, by exploiting variation in ownership within the Australian and UK life insurance industries. In mutuals, ownership rights are not t...

The purpose of the paper is to outline MULTI-PRIDE, a system for supporting multi-layered printed wiring board design. It consists of (i) circuit bipartition, (ii) placement and routing on each outside layer, (iii) modi cation of wiring and compaction, and (iv) routing on inside layers.

Imagine autonomous, self-sufficient robot collectives that can adapt their controllers autonomously and self-sufficiently to learn to cope with situations unforeseen by their designers. As one step towards the realisation of this vision, we investigate on-board evolutionary algorithms that allow robot controllers to adapt without any outside supervision and while the robots perform their proper...

For over a half century, the United States space program has been a leading contributor to the health and growth of our nation from the perspectives of science, technology, economy, and defense. Given the nature and purpose of past, present, and future spacecraft, from earth science to space science and exploration to defense surveillance, one of the most critical needs and daunting challenges ...

An extensive finance literature has suggested that independent (outside) directors monitor firm management and thereby increase firm value. Monitoring by a firm’s independent directors is, however, costly and the level of board monitoring should be endogenously determined as a function of firm characteristics. We show that a negative relationship between board monitoring and uncertainty is a di...

Members of boards of directors of large corporations who also serve together on an outside board, form the so called interlock graph of the board and are assumed to have a strong influence on each others’ opinion. We here study how the size and the topology of the interlock graph affect the probability that the board approves a strategy proposed by the Chief Executive Officer. We propose a meas...

Disclosure: Dr Peter Ferenci reports membership of the respective advisory boards for Univar, Wilson Therapeutics, and Vivet Pharmaceuticals. Dr Hirschfield reports personal fees for preparing and delivering an educational seminar from Univar, during the conduct of the study. Outside the submitted work, Dr Hirschfield is on the advisory board (PBC) for Novartis, GSK, Intercept Pharmaceuticals, ...