Abstract

This paper has an empirical aim. It consists in assessing, in original way, the corporate governance practices of a sample of 205 US firms based on an index over the period 2007-2012. It is a score calculated using the non-parametric method of the efficiency frontier which reflects, for each firm, the distance separating the firm from the border representing "best practices" in corporate governance. Thus, we build a corporate governance index where governance mechanisms constitute inputs and governance standards from the codes of good practices constitute the outputs. The results analysis reveals that the firms of the sample are, on average, relatively wellgoverned with some sectoral disparities.