Shareholder Democracy in Play: Career Consequences of Proxy Contests

65 Pages Posted: 18 Jul 2013 Last revised: 28 Jan 2015

See all articles by Vyacheslav Fos

Vyacheslav Fos

Boston College - Department of Finance; European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Margarita Tsoutsoura

Washington University in Saint Louis, John M. Olin Business School

Date Written: October 21, 2013

Abstract

This paper shows that proxy contests have a significant adverse effect on careers of incumbent directors. Following a proxy contest, directors experience a significant decline in number of directorships not only in the targeted company, but also in other non-targeted companies. The results are established using the universe of all proxy contests during 1996-2010. To establish that this effect of proxy contests is causal, we use within-firm variation in directors' exposure to proxy contests and exploit the predetermined schedule of staggered boards that only allows a fraction of directors to be nominated for election every year. We find that nominated directors relative to non-nominated ones lose 45% more seats on other boards. We discuss that this pattern can be expected if proxy contest mechanism imposes a significant career cost on incumbent directors.

Keywords: Proxy contests, Directors, Corporate governance, Agency problem

JEL Classification: G34, G38

Suggested Citation

Fos, Vyacheslav and Tsoutsoura, Margarita, Shareholder Democracy in Play: Career Consequences of Proxy Contests (October 21, 2013). Journal of Financial Economics (JFE), Volume 114, Issue 2, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2293953 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2293953

Vyacheslav Fos

Boston College - Department of Finance ( email )

Carroll School of Management
140 Commonwealth Avenue
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467-3808
United States

European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) ( email )

c/o the Royal Academies of Belgium
Rue Ducale 1 Hertogsstraat
1000 Brussels
Belgium

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) ( email )

London
United Kingdom

Margarita Tsoutsoura (Contact Author)

Washington University in Saint Louis, John M. Olin Business School ( email )

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