2015 Academic Conference on Corporate Governance

The Eight Annual Academic Conference on Corporate Governance will be held at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business on April 17, 2015. The conference features theoretical and empirical research related to corporate governance with a slight preference to research related to work by this year’s honoree, Jonathan M. Karpoff.

Jonathan M. Karpoff, is the Washington Mutual Endowed Chair in Innovation Professor of Finance at the University Of Washington Foster School Of Business. Jon will receive our award for outstanding contributions to research in corporate governance and present the keynote speech at Friday’s luncheon. Previous recipients were Michael Jensen, Rene Stulz, Andrei Shleifer, Steven Kaplan, Harold Demsetz, Kevin Murphy and Michael Weisbach.

Academic Conference Welcome Dinner The dinner will be held at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business on Thursday April 16, 2015 from 6 to 9 p.m. The keynote speaker for the evening will be Patrick S. McGurn, executive vice president and special counsel at Institutional Shareholder Services. Please notify Tamika Washington if you plan to attend.

Early Ideas Session As in previous years, we will hold an early ideas session where authors will get 10 – 15 mins to present their new research ideas. This is a great opportunity to gain valuable feedback on new research in its early stages. Please note, topics presented should not be in the working paper stage yet, instead we are looking for a truly “early idea” that could benefit from an open discussion. If you would like to present an idea during this session please contact Eli Fich at emf35@drexel.edu for additional information.

Presented Papers

*Passive Investors, Not Passive Owners Todd Gormley

*Do takeover defenses deter takeovers Robert Schonlau

*The Contract Year Phenomenon in the Corner Office: An Analysis of Firm Behavior During CEO Contract Renewals Yuhai Xuan

*Pay Me Now (and Later): Bonus Boosts Before Pension Freezes and Executive Departures Jun Yang

*Do Board Gender Quotas Reduce Firm Value Karin Thorburn

Papers will be available for Download by March 17th