How Much Do Directors Influence Firm Value?
Forthcoming in: Review of Financial Studies
43 Pages Posted: 5 Jun 2015 Last revised: 11 Jan 2019
Date Written: December 11, 2018
Abstract
The value a director provides to a firm is empirically hard to establish. We estimate that value by exploiting the commonality in idiosyncratic returns of firms linked by a director and show that, on average, a single director's influence causes variation in firm value of almost 1% per year. The return commonality is not due to industry or other observable economic links. Variation in the availability of information on shared directors and a placebo test exploiting the timing of shared directors provide further identification. The results also imply that the directorial labor market does not fully assess directors in real time.
Keywords: director influence, connected boards, price discovery, economic links, return predictability, information diffusion, market efficiency, investor inattention, limits to arbitrage, lead-lag effect, networks, boards of directors
JEL Classification: G10, G12, G14, G30
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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