IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bfr/banfra/459.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Voting in committee: firm value vs. back scratching

Author

Listed:
  • Ravanel, M.

Abstract

In this paper, I study how the CEO's election can be biased if some directors in the board belong to the same network. I use a static Bayesian game. Directors want to elect the best candidate but they also want to vote for the winner. In that context, results show that, when no candidate is part of the network, boards with a network perform better in electing the right candidate. On the other hand, it becomes detrimental for stockholders if one candidate is part of the network. Indeed, compared to a situation where there are no interconnections between directors, the directors who are members of a network vote more often for the candidate they think is best, rather than for the one they think might win. The ones who are not part of the network follow their lead. Thus the network has power on the result of the election and therefore limits the power of the future CEO.

Suggested Citation

  • Ravanel, M., 2013. "Voting in committee: firm value vs. back scratching," Working papers 459, Banque de France.
    • Handle: RePEc:bfr:banfra:459
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://publications.banque-france.fr/sites/default/files/medias/documents/working-paper_459_2013.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gilat Levy, 2007. "Decision Making in Committees: Transparency, Reputation, and Voting Rules," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 150-168, March.
    2. Nadya Malenko, 2014. "Communication and Decision-Making in Corporate Boards," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(5), pages 1486-1532.
    3. Renée B. Adams & Heitor Almeida & Daniel Ferreira, 2005. "Powerful CEOs and Their Impact on Corporate Performance," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(4), pages 1403-1432.
    4. Warther, Vincent A., 1998. "Board effectiveness and board dissent: A model of the board's relationship to management and shareholders," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 53-70, March.
    5. Scharfstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1990. "Herd Behavior and Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 465-479, June.
    6. Abhijit V. Banerjee, 1992. "A Simple Model of Herd Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(3), pages 797-817.
    7. Fama, Eugene F & Jensen, Michael C, 1983. "Separation of Ownership and Control," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(2), pages 301-325, June.
    8. Brian K. Boyd, 1994. "Board control and ceo compensation," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(5), pages 335-344, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hansen, Stephen & McMahon, Michael, 2008. "Delayed doves: MPC voting behaviour of externals," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 19611, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Fang, Hao & Lee, Jen-Sin & Chung, Chien-Ping & Lee, Yen-Hsien & Wang, Wen-Hao, 2020. "Effect of CEO power and board strength on bank performance in China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    3. Swank, Otto H. & Visser, Bauke, 2023. "Committees as active audiences: Reputation concerns and information acquisition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 221(C).
    4. Kathy Fogel & Liping Ma & Randall Morck, 2021. "Powerful independent directors," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 50(4), pages 935-983, December.
    5. Randall Morck, 2008. "Behavioral finance in corporate governance: economics and ethics of the devil’s advocate," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 12(2), pages 179-200, May.
    6. Chahine, Salim & Daher, Mai, 2025. "Do portfolio companies learn from their peers? Evidence from venture capital funding," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    7. Randall Morck, 2009. "Generalized Agency Problems," NBER Working Papers 15051, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Schwartz-Ziv, Miriam & Weisbach, Michael S., 2013. "What do boards really do? Evidence from minutes of board meetings☆☆Miriam Schwartz-Ziv is from Harvard University and Northeastern University, e-mail: miriam.schwartz@mail.huji.ac.il. Michael S. Weisb," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 349-366.
    9. Jiao Ji & Oleksandr Talavera & Shuxing Yin, 2018. "The Hidden Information Content: Evidence from the Tone of Independent Director Reports," Working Papers 2018-28, Swansea University, School of Management.
    10. Bohl, Martin T. & Branger, Nicole & Trede, Mark, 2017. "The case for herding is stronger than you think," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 30-40.
    11. Wang, Peiwen & Chen, Minghua & Wu, Ji & Yan, Yuanyun, 2023. "Do peer effects matter in bank risk? Some cross-country evidence," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    12. Bartosz Wilczek, 2020. "Misinformation and herd behavior in media markets: A cross-national investigation of how tabloids’ attention to misinformation drives broadsheets’ attention to misinformation in political and business," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-22, November.
    13. Jiali Liu & Xinran Xie & Yu Duan & Liang Tang, 2023. "Peer effects and the mechanisms in corporate capital structure: evidence from Chinese listed firms," Oeconomia Copernicana, Institute of Economic Research, vol. 14(1), pages 295-326, March.
    14. Pegah Dehghani & Ros Zam Zam Sapian, 2014. "Sectoral herding behavior in the aftermarket of Malaysian IPOs," Venture Capital, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(3), pages 227-246, July.
    15. To, Thomas & Wu, Eliza & Zhao, Diya, 2024. "Global board reforms and corporate acquisition performance," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    16. Saad, Mohsen & Samet, Anis, 2020. "Collectivism and commonality in liquidity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 137-162.
    17. Kim, Kong-Hee & Al-Shammari, Hussam A. & Kim, Bongjin & Lee, Seung-Hyun, 2009. "CEO duality leadership and corporate diversification behavior," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 62(11), pages 1173-1180, November.
    18. He, Xue-Zhong & Li, Kai & Santi, Caterina & Shi, Lei, 2022. "Social interaction, volatility clustering, and momentum," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 203(C), pages 125-149.
    19. Robin, Stéphane & Rusinowska, Agnieszka & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2014. "Ingratiation: Experimental evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 16-38.
    20. Cook, Douglas O. & Chowdhury, Jaideep & Zhang, Weiwei, 2023. "Director optimism and CEO equity compensation," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 143-162.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Networks; corporate governance.;

    JEL classification:

    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bfr:banfra:459. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael brassart (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bdfgvfr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.