Research Question/Issue: This paper examines the impact of changes in board independence on the market valuation of Swedish firms. I exploit an exogenous change to the rules of corporate governance in 2005, which requires large firms to have majority independent boards, as a quasi‐experimental setting.Research Findings/Insights: I use a regression discontinuity design and a difference‐in‐differences approach to capture the reaction of the market to the new governance rules, taking advantage of the fact that only large firms are required to comply with the code. The results indicate that (a) the market reacts negatively to the enactment of the new governance rules and (b) target firms that complied with the independence requirement witnessed larger decreases in their market valuation compared with the rest of the firms in the sample. The busyness of independent directors is a potential explanation for the estimated negative effect of the increased board independence on the market valuation of target firms. For instance, I find that independent directors in target firms experienced a larger increase in their busyness compared with their peers in nontarget firms. This increase in busyness is also more pronounced for independent directors of complying target firms.Theoretical/Academic Implications: The findings of this paper are in line with theoretical models that find that imposing quotas on the number of independent directors might not be optimal for all firms.Practitioner/Policy Implications: This paper identifies board busyness as an important consequence of requiring board independence in the Swedish context. The results of the paper have implications for corporate governance policies that impose quotas on board independence without limiting board busyness, especially when the supply of directors is limited. (Less)

中文翻译：

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董事会独立对忙碌的董事和公司价值的影响：来自瑞典监管变化的证据

研究问题/问题：本文研究了董事会独立性的变化对瑞典公司市场估值的影响。我利用 2005 年公司治理规则的外生变化，这要求大公司拥有多数独立董事会，作为准实验设置。 研究结果/见解：我使用回归不连续性设计和差异中的差异方法捕捉市场对新治理规则的反应，利用只有大公司才需要遵守准则的事实。结果表明，(a) 市场对新治理规则的实施产生负面反应；(b) 与样本中的其他公司相比，遵守独立性要求的目标公司的市场估值下降幅度更大。独立董事的忙碌是对董事会独立性增加对目标公司市场估值的估计负面影响的潜在解释。例如，我发现目标公司的独立董事与非目标公司的同行相比，他们的忙碌程度有更大的增加。对于符合条件的目标公司的独立董事，这种忙碌的增加也更为明显。 理论/学术意义：本文的研究结果与理论模型一致，即对独立董事人数施加配额可能并非对所有公司都是最佳的.从业者/政策含义：本文将董事会繁忙视为在瑞典语境中要求董事会独立的重要后果。该论文的结果对在不限制董事会繁忙度的情况下对董事会独立性施加配额的公司治理政策具有影响，尤其是在董事供应有限的情况下。（较少的）