Flammer and Bansal (2016)

Flammer, Caroline and Pratima Bansal. “Does a Long-Term Orientation Create Value?  Evidence From a Regression Discontinuity.”  Strategic Management Journal, December 2016.

From authors' abstract: "[W]e examine shareholder proposals on long-term executive compensation that pass or fail by a small margin of votes. The passage of such “close call” proposals is akin to a random assignment of long-term incentives and hence provides a clean causal estimate. We find that the adoption of such proposals leads to i) an increase in firm value and operating performance―suggesting that a long-term orientation is beneficial to companies―and ii) an increase in firms’ investments in long-term strategies such as innovation and stakeholder relationships."

LK comment:  Strong paper.  Moskowitz Prize Honorable Mention in 2016, co-winner of the 2016 IRRC annual investor research competition.  

Link (published version):  http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smj.2629/abstract