We study how Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) affect firms’ engagement with shareholders. Our analyses exploit a quasi-natural experiment using say-on-pay voting outcomes near a threshold that triggers ISS to review engagement activities. Firms receiving ISS treatment exhibit swift and substantive increases in extensive and intensive margins of engagement, especially when their boards have higher agency conflicts and directors are more likely to lose voting support from ISS. Increases in engagement persist over time, and shareholders appear to value the increased engagement. Collectively, we shed light on an unexplored channel through which ISS positively influences firms’ governance and information environments. (JEL D72, D82, G34, G38, M12)

中文翻译：

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代理咨询公司和企业股东参与


我们研究机构股东服务 (ISS) 如何影响公司与股东的互动。我们的分析利用准自然实验，使用接近阈值的薪酬发言权投票结果，触发 ISS 审查参与活动。接受 ISS 待遇的公司在广泛和密集的参与度方面表现出迅速和实质性的增长，特别是当它们的董事会存在较高的代理冲突并且董事更有可能失去 ISS 的投票支持时。随着时间的推移，参与度持续增加，股东似乎也很重视参与度的增加。总的来说，我们揭示了 ISS 对公司治理和信息环境产生积极影响的未经探索的渠道。 (JEL D72、D82、G34、G38、M12)