Outsourcing Shareholder Voting to Proxy Advisory Firms
Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 58, No. 1 (February 2015), pp. 173-204
Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University Working Paper No. 119
Stanford University Graduate School of Business Research Paper No. 14-27 (2105R)
51 Pages Posted: 19 Jul 2012 Last revised: 2 Sep 2015
Date Written: October 30, 2014
Abstract
This paper examines the economic consequences of institutional investors outsourcing research and voting decisions in public company elections to proxy advisory firms. We investigate the implications of these decisions in the context of shareholder say-on-pay voting required in 2011 under the Dodd-Frank Act. We find three primary results: proxy advisory firm recommendations have a substantive impact on say-on-pay voting outcomes; a substantial number of firms change their compensation programs in the time period before the formal shareholder vote in a manner consistent with the features known to be favored by proxy advisory firms in an effort to avoid a negative voting recommendation; and the stock market reaction to these compensation program changes is statistically negative. These results suggest that the outsourcing of voting to proxy advisory firms appears to have the unintended economic consequence that boards of directors are induced to make choices that decrease shareholder value.
Note: This paper has been retitled from "The Economic Consequences of Proxy Advisor Say-on-Pay Voting Policies" to "Outsourcing Shareholder Voting to Proxy Advisory Firms."
Keywords: proxy advisory firms, say-on-pay, institutional shareholder voting
JEL Classification: G1; G3; K2; L5
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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