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Journal of Financial Economics Vol. 42 No. 3 1996

Corporate governance and shareholder initiatives: Empirical evidence

Jonathan M. Karpoff1; Paul H. Malatesta1; Ralph A. Walkling2,3,4

1 University of Washington · 2 The Ohio State University · 3 Fisher College · 4 Drexel University

Abstract

Shareholder-initiated proxy proposals on corporate governance issues became popular in the late 1980s as corporate takeover activity declined. We find firms attracting governance proposals have poor prior performance, as measured by the market-to-book ratio, operating return, and sales growth. There is little evidence that operating returns improve after proposals. The proposals also have negligible effects on company share values and top management turnover. Even proposals that receive a majority of shareholder votes typically do not engender share price increases or discernible changes in firm policies.

DOI
10.1016/0304-405x(96)00883-5
Volume
42
Issue
3
Pages
365-395
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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