TY  - JOUR
AU  - Cremers,Martijn
AU  - Romano,Roberta
TI  - Institutional Investors and Proxy Voting on Compensation Plans: The Impact of the 2003 Mutual Fund Voting Disclosure Regulation
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15449
PY  - 2009
Y2  - October 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15449
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15449.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Martijn Cremers
University of Notre Dame
264 Mendoza College of Business
Notre Dame, IN 46556-5646
Tel: 574-6314476
E-Mail: mcremers@nd.edu

Roberta Romano
Yale Law School
P.O. Box 208215
Yale Station
New Haven, CT 06520-8215
Tel: 203/432-4965
Fax: 203/436-4660
E-Mail: roberta.romano@yale.edu
AB  - This paper examines the impact on shareholder voting of the mutual fund voting disclosure regulation adopted by the SEC in 2003, using a paired sample of management proposals on executive equity incentive compensation plans submitted before and after the rule change. While voting support for management has decreased over time, we find no evidence that mutual funds’ support for management declined after the rule change, as expected by advocates of disclosure. In fact, we find evidence of increased support for management by mutual funds after the change. There is some evidence that firms sponsoring such proposals both before and after the rule change differ from those sponsoring a proposal only before the change. For example, firms are more likely to sponsor a proposal both before and after the rule change if they have higher mutual fund ownership. Such endogeneity could partly explain our findings of increased support after the rule.
ER  -