Board reforms and firm employment: Worldwide evidence

IF 3.6 2区经济学 Q1 BUSINESS, FINANCE

Journal of Banking & Finance Pub Date : 2025-02-01 DOI:10.1016/j.jbankfin.2024.107379

Yi Si , Minfeng Yu , Lei Zhang , Qing (Clara) Zhou

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Abstract

Managers often overreact to revenue fluctuations, leading to unnecessary workforce adjustments and increased training costs. This study examines how board governance influences firms’ employment sensitivity to revenue fluctuations. Analyzing global board reforms, we find that board reforms significantly reduce managerial overreaction to revenue fluctuations. Utilizing recent difference-in-differences estimators that address heterogeneous treatment effects, we ensure the robustness of our results. The reduction in employment sensitivity is more pronounced when board reforms strengthen the independence of boards and audit committees, particularly in jurisdictions with weaker board efficacy, shareholder, and employment protection legislation. Enhanced effects are observed in firms with initially lower board independence and rapid reform compliance, in entities experiencing greater information asymmetry, marked by higher labor intensity, higher pre-reform agency costs and financial constraints, and in firms led by less experienced CEOs or boards with higher male representation.

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董事会改革与企业就业：全球证据

管理者经常对收入波动反应过度，导致不必要的劳动力调整和增加培训成本。本研究探讨董事会治理如何影响公司就业对收入波动的敏感性。分析全球董事会改革，我们发现董事会改革显著降低了管理层对收入波动的过度反应。利用最近的差分中差分估计器来处理异质性治疗效果，我们确保了结果的稳健性。当董事会改革加强董事会和审计委员会的独立性时，尤其是在董事会效率、股东和就业保护立法较弱的司法管辖区，就业敏感性的降低更为明显。在最初董事会独立性较低和改革依从性较快的企业中，在经历更大信息不对称的实体中，以更高的劳动强度、更高的改革前代理成本和财务约束为特征，以及在由经验不足的首席执行官领导的企业或男性代表较多的董事会中，可以观察到增强的效应。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Banking & Finance Multiple-

CiteScore

6.40

自引率

5.40%

发文量

262

期刊介绍： The Journal of Banking and Finance (JBF) publishes theoretical and empirical research papers spanning all the major research fields in finance and banking. The aim of the Journal of Banking and Finance is to provide an outlet for the increasing flow of scholarly research concerning financial institutions and the money and capital markets within which they function. The Journal''s emphasis is on theoretical developments and their implementation, empirical, applied, and policy-oriented research in banking and other domestic and international financial institutions and markets. The Journal''s purpose is to improve communications between, and within, the academic and other research communities and policymakers and operational decision makers at financial institutions - private and public, national and international, and their regulators. The Journal is one of the largest Finance journals, with approximately 1500 new submissions per year, mainly in the following areas: Asset Management; Asset Pricing; Banking (Efficiency, Regulation, Risk Management, Solvency); Behavioural Finance; Capital Structure; Corporate Finance; Corporate Governance; Derivative Pricing and Hedging; Distribution Forecasting with Financial Applications; Entrepreneurial Finance; Empirical Finance; Financial Economics; Financial Markets (Alternative, Bonds, Currency, Commodity, Derivatives, Equity, Energy, Real Estate); FinTech; Fund Management; General Equilibrium Models; High-Frequency Trading; Intermediation; International Finance; Hedge Funds; Investments; Liquidity; Market Efficiency; Market Microstructure; Mergers and Acquisitions; Networks; Performance Analysis; Political Risk; Portfolio Optimization; Regulation of Financial Markets and Institutions; Risk Management and Analysis; Systemic Risk; Term Structure Models; Venture Capital.