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We examine a primary outcome of corporate governance, namely, the ability to identify and terminate poorly performing CEOs, to test the effectiveness of U.S. investor protections in improving the corporate governance of cross-listed firms. We find that firms from weak investor protection regimes that are cross-listed on a major U.S. Exchange are more likely to terminate poorly performing CEOs than non-cross-listed firms. Cross-listings on exchanges that do not require the adoption of stringent investor protections (OTC, private placements, and London listings) are not associated with a higher propensity to remove poorly performing CEOs. Copyright (c) 2008 The American Finance Association.

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Corporate governance can provide mechanisms to effectively monitor the use of derivatives. Using a sample of firms from 34 countries over the period 1990 to 1999, I find that firms with strong governance use currency derivatives for value-maximizing reasons as established by theory. On the other hand, firms with weak governance use such derivatives mostly for managerial self-interests and selective hedging. These results are robust to using a sample of U.S. firms, the use of foreign denominated debt as an alternative strategy to hedge currency risk, selection bias, and a possible endogeneity between hedging policies, corporate governance, and other financial policies. Overall, the results serve as the first comprehensive evidence on the impact of corporate governance on why firms use derivatives and consequently why they hedge.JEL classification: G32; G34.

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