This doctoral thesis focuses on two topics that have received considerable attention from academics, regulators, and the business press over the past decades: insider trading, and shareholder activism. The first chapter evaluates proxy proposals as a corporate governance device in Europe. The second chapter analyzes the relation between firm-level corporate governance rules and the profitability of insider trading. The third chapter investigates whether trading by bank insiders prior to the recent subprime mortgage crisis is related to bank performance during the crisis. The fourth chapter examines the relation between CEO tenure, contract horizon, and insider trading
