Resumen de Board ties and the cost of corporate debt

Tuugi Chuluun, Andrew Prevost, John. Puthenpurackal

• We examine the impact of firms' board ties on bond yield spreads. Prior literature associates board connectedness with improved access to resources due to visibility and reputation arising from greater board capital. Consistent with the board capital hypothesis, we find that better connected firms are associated with greater media coverage and more ties to financial firms. Additionally, greater connectedness is linked with statistically and economically significant lower bond yield spreads, especially for firms with high information asymmetry. Our main result appears robust and includes significant negative (positive) changes in yield spreads to announcements of additions (departures) of highly connected directors.