Hiring Cheerleaders: Board Appointments of "Independent" Directors

We would like to thank Joakim Bang, Brad Barber, Nick Barberis, Sugato Bhattacharya, John Campbell, Josh Coval, Simon Gervais, Gustavo Grullon, Kathleen Hanley, Ayla Kayhan, Bruce Kraus, Alexander Ljunqqvist, Ulrike Malmendier, Jennifer Marietta-Westberg, Cade Massey, Matt Spiegel, Erik Stafford, Jeremy Stein, Jake Thomas, Steen Thomsen, Sheridan Titman, Lori Walsh, and seminar participants at Emory, Harvard Business School, Helsinki School of Economics, Northeastern University, Oxford University, University of Melbourne, University of New South Wales, the Texas Finance Festival, the Yale SOM Behavioral Sciences Conference, the American Finance Association (AFA) meetings, the European Finance Association (EFA) meetings, the Singapore International Conference on Finance, the Families, Networks, and Firms Conference at Thammasat Business School, and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for helpful comments. We also thank Alex Tang for excellent research assistance. In addition, we are grateful to BoardEx and Linda Cechova for providing firm board data. We also thank Alex Tang for excellent research assistance. In addition, we are grateful to BoardEx and Linda Cechova for providing firm board data. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

• August 12, 2008
• July 20, 2009