Conference Agenda

Virtual-only shareholder meetings have become dramatically more common following Covid-19. By creating a unique dataset documenting questions shareholders submitted at virtual-only shareholder meetings, I document that precisely when shareholders vote against the directors proposed by management, indicating contention with management, firms are likely to ignore shareholders’ questions. Similarly, I show that when such low-support votes prevail, transcripts of virtual-only shareholder meetings reveal that firms are likely to explicitly limit the scope of questions they are willing to address at the meeting, and not reveal at the meeting precise vote outcomes. Companies that use such methods have significantly more limited communication at virtual-only shareholder meetings, and these methods are significantly more common at virtual-only meetings relative to inperson meetings. Overall, relative to in-person meetings, virtual-only meetings are shorter and dedicate less time to addressing shareholders’ concerns

This paper examines racial preferences of shareholders in the context of corporate director elections. We document a higher propensity of mutual fund managers to vote for director nominees who match their racial/ethnic identity. The same-race preference is more prevalent in elections involving nominees receiving negative recommendations from the dominant proxy advisor ISS. We rule out various potential channels --statistical discrimination, value maximization, conflicts of interest, and social networks-- using high-dimensional fixed effect models along with heterogeneity tests. Additional evidence indicates the documented same-race preference aligns with taste-based biases, and has important consequences for labor market outcomes of director candidates.

This paper examines the voting behavior of women-led mutual funds. We find that women-led mutual funds are more likely to support environmental and social (ES) proposals, but not governance ones, and their voting support is more pronounced for proposals explicitly related to ES risks. Women-led mutual funds are more likely to vote with management in firms headed by female CEOs. They are also more likely to support female candidates in director elections, especially so when there is a shortage of female directors. Finally, women-led mutual funds are not more likely to follow ISS recommendations than other funds. Our results suggest that gender differences in fund management teams influence their voting behavior.