In July 2020, the European Commission published the “Study on directors’ duties and sustainable corporate governance” by EY. The report purports to find evidence of debilitating short-termism in EU corporate governance and recommends many changes to support sustainable corporate governance. In a recent paper, we point out deep flaws in the report’s evidence and analysis.

Here’s a brief summary of those flaws. First, the report defines the corporate governance problem as pernicious short-termism that damages the environment, the climate, and stakeholders. But the report mistakenly conflates time-horizon problems with externalities and distributional concerns. Cures for one are not … Read more