Tradeoffs in Corporate Governance: Evidence From Board Structures and Charter Provisions
Abstract
We provide arguments and present evidence that corporate governance structures are composed of interrelated mechanisms, which are in turn endogenous responses to the costs and benefits firms face when they choose those mechanisms. Examining board structures and the use of corporate charter provisions in a sample of more than 2,300 firms over a four-year period, we find that firms cluster in their use of governance mechanisms. In particular, the set of charter provisions that firms use, as measured by the Gompers et al. (2003) G Index, is associated with board structure, with the laws of the state in which the firm is incorporated, and with firm and industry characteristics. We also find that some governance structures appear to serve as substitutes. Specifically, firms that have powerful boards (as measured by board independence) also have the greatest number of charter provisions, suggesting that the market for corporate control is less effective as a monitoring mechanism for these firms. In contrast, firms that have less powerful boards tend to have few charter provisions, suggesting that the market for corporate control plays a greater monitoring role at such firms. To address potential endogeneity issues, we employ three-stage least squares analysis to estimate these relationships within a system of equations. Our results from this analysis are consistent with the hypothesis that powerful boards serve as a substitute for the market for corporate control. Finally, our findings suggest that causality runs from the board to the choice of charter provisions, but not vice versa.
This paper was started while Gillan was with the TIAA-CREF Institute. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of TIAA-CREF. We would like to thank Jennifer Bethel, Bernie Black, Margaret Blair, Jeff Coles, Jon Karpoff, Kose John, Per Stromberg, Randall Thomas, Sheridan Titman, and seminar participants at the University of Texas at Dallas, Hong Kong University for Science and Technology, the University of Lancaster, the University of Manchester, the National University of Singapore, and Singapore Management University for their comments. We would also like to thank Daryl Bert, Carlos Molina, Chris Parsons and Li Yong for research assistance.
