This paper studies the effect of board reforms on stock liquidity using data from 37 countries. We document that board reforms significantly increase stock liquidity: the effective spread on average decreases by 12.7% after a board reform. As information asymmetry is a key determinant of stock liquidity, we further find that board reforms decrease information asymmetry, and the treatment effect of board reforms on stock liquidity is stronger for firms with ex ante higher information asymmetry. Finally, board reforms facilitate healthy stock market development, with the effect being stronger for countries with lower aggregate stock market liquidity prior to reforms.

In this paper, we examine the effect of financial analysts on the quality of corporate investment decisions. We show that greater analyst coverage leads to higher total factor productivity within firms, a finding that is robust after using both an instrumental variable approach and an experimental design that exploits exogenous reductions in analyst coverage due to broker mergers and closures. We further identify that the positive effect of analysts on firm-level productivity emanates from their critical role in information distribution and external monitoring within more opaque and financially constrained firms and also firms with weaker investor protection.

We examine the effect of shareholder litigation rights on managers' acquisition decisions. Our experimental design exploits a U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling on July 2, 1999 that resulted in a reduction in shareholder class actions. We find that, since the ruling, firms in Ninth Circuit states acquire larger targets. Furthermore, acquirers' returns are lower in these states, especially for those with weaker corporate governance. Further analysis shows that value destruction is the result of managers' freedom to conduct empire-building acquisitions using overvalued equity. Overall, our findings indicate the importance of shareholder litigation as an external governance mechanism.