CEO Quality Research Articles

Shareholder Activism and CEO Quality

Shareholder Activism and CEO Quality

Where Do the Talented People Work as Outside Directors?

This paper develops a matching model in the director market with outside options to explain the equilibrium board quality. Based on Hermalin (2005) and Gabaix and Landier (2006), the board of directors has the function of monitoring and advising to affect the earning of firm assuming that the impact of a CEO's quality increases with the size of the firm under his control. This model shows that the big firms make board positions more attractive compared to outside options. Also, only when the impact of the advising by the board is strong, the more talented CEO can induce the high qualified outside directors. It follows that the board quality increases. Additionally, the model can explain the observed fact that the quality of directors on the same boards is dispersed. The estimations suggest that the talented ongoing CEOs and retired CEOs go to the firms which have the high market capitalization values and the large amount of sales. The evidence for the effect of the incumbent CEO's talent is mixed. I also find that the firms which have a large amount of sales pay more to outside directors. The compensation for directors, however, does not affect the quality of boards.

The importance of CeO 2 growth temperature and its post-annealing for the improvement of the microwave surface resistance of DyBa 2Cu 3O z films

We report here the influence of growth temperature of CeO 2 buffer layer T ( CeO 2 ) as well as the post-annealing of the buffer layer on the crystallinity and the microwave surface resistance R s of DyBa 2Cu 3O z (DBCO) films grown by pulsed laser deposition (PLD). It is found that (i) an increase in the T ( CeO 2 ) facilitates the epitaxial growth of the CeO 2 films, which is a prerequisite to obtain the high quality superconducting films and (ii) the post-annealing of buffer layer at 1050 °C in flowing O 2 for 1 h leads to a profound improvement in the morphology and in the crystallinity of CeO 2 films. Apparently, there exists a critical growth temperature ( T ( CeO 2 ) = 800 – 820 ∘ C , as found in this and previous study [J.C. Nie, H. Yamasaki, Y. Nakagawa, K.D. Bagarinao, M. Murugesan, H. Obara, Y. Mawatari, J. Crystal Growth 284 (2005) 417]) for CeO 2, below which the crystalline quality of CeO 2 films might not be improved merely by the post-annealing. It is explained that for T ( CeO 2 ) < 800 ∘ C , the as-grown CeO 2 grains are longitudinal in shape, and it forms corrugated structure upon annealing. This poor morphology yields a deteriorated crystallinity (i.e., a large value of Δ ω and Δ φ, and the formation of secondary phase) for the CeO 2 as well as the overlying DBCO films, and hence a poor microwave performance of DBCO films for T ( CeO 2 ) < 800 ∘ C . We also observed that the R s in DBCO films monotonously decreased with increase in the growth temperature of CeO 2. Further, the post-annealing of the CeO 2 buffer layer prior to DBCO deposition greatly helps to reduce the R s at the liquid N 2 temperature region, which is immensely required for the use of superconducting films in the passive microwave device components. Thus, the 800–820 °C of T ( CeO 2 ) and the post-annealing of CeO 2 at 1050 °C in flowing O 2 for 1 h may be readily exploited to grow RBCO (R=Y or rare-earth elements) films for microwave applications on the technologically viable r-Al 2O 3 substrates.

Oxygen radical irradiation effect in reactive magnetron sputtering for orientation selective epitaxial growth of [formula omitted] layers on Si(1 0 0) substrates

Orientation selective epitaxial growth of CeO 2 ( 1 0 0 ) and (1 1 0) layers is attained on practical H-terminated Si(1 0 0) surfaces by controlling substrate bias and a growth rate using reactive DC magnetron sputtering enhanced with an inductively coupled RF plasma in an Ar / O 2 environment. Application of oxygen radical beams to reactive sputtering proved to enable growth temperature lowering by at least 100 ∘ C in the CeO 2 ( 1 0 0 ) layer growth under optimum substrate bias of 15 V, wherein conventional reactive sputtering requires ∼ 800 ∘ C . X-ray diffraction analyses confirmed that crystalline quality of CeO 2 ( 1 0 0 ) layers grown with the oxygen radical beam application is much improved than those grown by conventional reactive sputtering.

Control Benefits and CEO Discipline in Automatic Bankruptcy Auctions

Swedish bankruptcy filing automatically terminates CEO employment and triggers an auction of the firm. Critics of this system warn of excessive shareholder risk-shifting incentives prior to filing. We argue that private benefits of control induce managerial conservatism that may override risk-shifting incentives. By investing conservatively, the CEO increases the joint probability that the auction results in a going-concern sale and that she is rehired. This uniquely implies that the rehiring probability is increasing in private control benefits, which our empirical results support. We also find that buyers in the auction screen on CEO quality. Overall, labor market discipline is dramatic, as filing CEOs suffer large income losses relative to CEOs of matched, non-bankrupt firms. Firms emerging from bankruptcy typically perform at par with industry rivals.

Study of the epitaxial growth of CeO 2(0 0 1) on yttria-stabilized zirconia/Si(0 0 1)

Thin CeO 2 films have been grown by pulsed laser deposition on Si(0 0 1) with yttria-stabilized zirconia buffer layers. The influence of substrate temperature (20–800°C), oxygen pressure (10 −5–1 mbar), and laser repetition rate (1–20 Hz) on the CeO 2 crystal and surface quality has been investigated. For an oxygen pressure lower than 10 −2 mbar, the CeO 2 film grows epitaxially in full temperature range, high-quality epitaxial films were deposited even at room temperature. The out-of-plane CeO 2 lattice parameter decreased as the substrate temperature increased, but no dependence on oxygen pressure has been observed. Rocking curve value of CeO 2(0 0 2) showed a weak dependence on the oxygen pressure within the range from 10 −5 to 10 −2 mbar, decreasing when the substrate temperature increases. The crystal quality of CeO 2 layers deposited at 100°C decreased as the laser repetition rate increased, but increased with higher repetition rate for deposition at 800°C. Smooth, featureless surfaces were observed for all the temperatures studied and for oxygen pressure lower than 10 −2 mbar. The study of the deposition on a wide range of technological parameters showed reproducible growth of the CeO 2 thin films of excellent crystal and surface quality on Si(0 0 1).