This paper exploits the staggered initiation of takeover laws across countries to examine whether the threat of takeover enhances managerial discipline. We show that following the passage of takeover laws, poorly performing firms experience more frequent takeovers; the propensity to replace poorly performing CEOs increases, especially in countries with weak investor protection; and directors of targeted firms are more likely to lose board seats following corporate-control events. Our findings suggest that the threat of takeover causes managerial discipline through the incentives that the market for corporate control provides to boards to monitor managers.

This article studies the ability of security-level contracts to substitute for poor country-level investor protections. Using a cross-country sample of restrictive covenants, we find that bond contacts are more likely to include covenants when creditor protection laws are weak. Further, the use of restrictive covenants in weak creditor protection countries is associated with a lower cost of debt. We also find that strong country-level shareholder rights are not necessarily harmful to bondholders. Overall, the findings suggest that issuers and investors can create international contracts that overcome some of the deficiencies of country-level investor protections and facilitate access to external finance.

We test for gender bias in promotions at financial institutions using two central predictions of Becker’s (1957, 1993) model: firms with bias will (1) raise the promotion bar for marginally promoted female workers, and (2) incur costs from forgoing efficient employment practices. We find support for both of these predictions using a new nationwide panel of mortgage loan officers and their managers encompassing approximately 72,000 workers from over 1,000 shadow banks from 2014 to 2019. Overall, our findings provide evidence that gender bias is an important factor in gender gaps at financial institutions.