What Are the Firm Value Implications of SEC-Challenged Shareholder Proposals?

The author thanks advisor Ruediger Fahlenbrach for guidance and support. The author also thanks Suraj Srinivasan (the editor), an anonymous associate editor, two anonymous referees, Paul Beaumont (discussant), Francesca Cornelli, Alberta Di Giuli (discussant), Theodosios Dimopoulos, Kornelia Fabisik, Fabrizio Ferri, Marc Frattaroli, Thomas Geelen (discussant), Philipp Geiler (discussant), Xavier Giroud, Christoph Herpfer, Wei Jiang, Rafael Lalive, Daniel Metzger, Erwan Morellec, Dragon Yongjun Tang, Shan Zhao (discussant), Ryan Williams (discussant), the participants of the 35th French Finance Association (AFFI) conference, the 16th Belgian Financial Research Forum (BFRF) at Belgian National Bank, the 2018 Swiss Finance Institute (SFI) Research Days, the 2020 Columbia University Finance PhD Seminar, the 3rd Dauphine Finance PhD Workshop, the 17th Corporate Finance Days, and the 8th Hong Kong Joint Finance Research Workshop for helpful comments and suggestions. An earlier version of the paper was distributed under the title “What are the shareholder value implications of non-voted shareholder proposals?” and was part of Couvert’s dissertation at the Swiss Finance Institute of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).