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Business Week Board Rankings And Subsequent Stock Returns, Steven D. Dolvin

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

Recent corporate bankruptcies have placed renewed focus on the role of a firm's board of directors; therefore, I study rankings of the best and worst boards of directors as published by Business Week. Similar to prior studies examining survey data, I find that the portion of the rankings determined via investment manager survey is biased by the "halo effect." However, I also find that the rankings as a whole, and particularly the portion calculated via quantitative analysis, do provide information that can be used in a trading strategy capable of generating positive abnormal returns, thereby implying that board strength does …