Recent research asserts that an essential feature of good corporate governance
is strong investor protection, where investor protection is defined as
the extent of the laws that protect investors’ rights and the strength of the
legal institutions that facilitate law enforcement. The purpose of this study is
to test this assertion by investigating whether these measures of investor protection
are associated with an important role of good corporate governance:
identifying and terminating poorly performing CEOs. Our tests indicate that
strong law enforcement institutions significantly improve the association between
CEO turnover and poor performance, whereas extensive investor protection laws
do not. In addition, we find that in countries with strong law enforcement,
CEO turnover is more likely to be associated with poor stock returns when
stock prices are more informative. Finding that strong law enforcement institutions
are associated with improved CEO turnover-performance sensitivity
is consistent with good corporate governance requiring law enforcement institutions
capable of protecting shareholders’ property rights (i.e., protecting
shareholders from expropriation by insiders). Finding that investor protection