Date of Award
4-26-2024
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Chair and Committee
Todd Gormley
Committee Members
na
Abstract
This thesis consists of two essays that deal with institutional investors and corporate governance. In particular the first chapter studies the relationship between higher temperatures and institutions’ proxy voting. Analyzing voting decisions by U.S. mutual funds, I find that heat exposure negatively correlates with voting against management. The findings concentrate on companies or shareholder proposals where a stockholding in the firm represents a larger share of an institution’s portfolio. The heat-voting relationship is stronger when an institutional shareholder is experiencing unusually hotter temperatures. My results suggest potentially significant but hidden corporate governance implications of climate change. The second chapter studies the association between institutions’ attention to individual stocks and their active ownership positions. We find that institutions tend to vote in ways suggesting greater attention to stocks where they hold a larger active position. This association holds for institutions where voting decisions are centralized governance, including “The Big Three,” and is larger for illiquid stocks, where institutions’ active funds are less able to exercise governance via exit. Our findings suggest that passive institutions’ actively managed holdings enhance their incentive to be engaged stewards.
Recommended Citation
Kim, Jun Mok, "Essays in Corporate Governance" (2024). Olin Business School Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 37.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/olin_etds/37