The proposed study examines the effect of CEO-board social connections on corporate policies. Motivated by the independent board view and collaborative board view, I propose two opposing hypotheses explaining the effect of CEO-board connections on corporate policies: monitoring hypothesis and advising hypothesis. In my first essay, I validate the two competing hypotheses of CEO-board connections by investigating the effect of CEO-board connections on monitoring and advising role of the board, and firm valuation. I find that CEO-board connections have a negative effect on board monitoring and positive effect on board advising and firm valuation. The results are robust to endogeneity concerns and different model specifications. Disentangling the Channels, I also show that the predicted effect of CEO-board connections on board monitoring and advising have opposite effects on firm valuation. Lastly, I provide evidence that the effect of CEO-board connections on firm performance is stronger in firms with high growth opportunities. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2020. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection