In the paper, The Labor Market for Directors, Reputational Concerns, and Externalities in Corporate Governance, which was recently made publicly available on SSRN, we examine how the labor market for directors and directors’ reputational concerns affect corporate governance.

Being a director on the board of a public company is a privilege that often brings generous monetary compensation, prestige, publicity, power, and access to valuable networks. In order to retain old board seats and gain new ones, directors need to develop a reputation and prove they are a good match for other companies. However, it is not clear what reputation is “relevant” in this context. If corporate governance is strong and boards of other companies protect the interests of their shareholders, then building a reputation for being shareholder-friendly can help in obtaining more directorships. On the other hand, if corporate governance is weak and boards of other companies are captured by their managers who want to maintain power, then having a reputation for being management-friendly might be more useful. The goal of this paper is to understand how the labor market for directors and these conflicting reputational concerns affect directors’ behavior and the quality of corporate governance.

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