Does Board Independence Reduce the Cost of Debt?
利用萨班斯-奥克斯利法案作为自然实验，发现董事会独立性在信贷条件好或杠杆率低时降低债务成本，但在信贷条件差或杠杆率高时反而增加债务成本，原因是独立董事倾向于增加公司风险，损害债权人利益。
Using the passage of the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act and the associated changes in listing standards as a natural experiment, we find that while board independence decreases the cost of debt when credit conditions are strong or leverage is low, it increases the cost of debt when credit conditions are poor or leverage is high. We also document that independent directors set corporate policies that increase firm risk. These results suggest that independent directors act in the interests of shareholders and are increasingly costly to bondholders with the intensification of the agency conflict between these two stakeholder groups.