The media play an important role in capital markets. Media coverage can attract the attention of investors and the public at large and affect the decisions of management. As such, the media can have a corporate governance role in disciplining …

In September 2021, the Boeing 737 Max debacle turned into an important moment in corporate law. A Delaware court allowed a derivative lawsuit brought by Boeing shareholders to proceed, based on the theory that Boeing’s directors breached their oversight duties …

Over the past decade, ESG has morphed from a fringe concern into one of the most prominent topics in corporate governance – and a flourishing research area as well.[1] Nevertheless, some notable blindspots remain. Based on a recent survey, …

Intense debates are alive and well on the nature and meaning of corporate purpose and corporate personhood. In a new paper, I analyze proposals by the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission to require that all reporting companies make periodic, mandatory …

Over the past few decades, chief executive officer (CEO) pay has risen spectacularly, as has debate regarding why this has occurred and whether policy should or can correct it. Yet one glaring fact about the C-Suite eludes much of the …

Do companies adopt optimal governance arrangements when they go public?  This question has been a hotly debated topic in corporate law and governance and one that I examine in a recent paper.

At the time of an initial public offering …

The widely accepted primary purpose of corporations is to maximize profit or value to shareholders, otherwise known as “shareholder primacy.”  Shareholder primacy represents not only the prevalent objective of corporations but also a norm: A seminal case in corporate law, …

Considerable controversy has surrounded the Supreme Court’s sharply divided decisions in Citizens United and Hobby Lobby. Critics argue that giving business corporations unwarranted constitutional protections entrenches corporate power at the expense of democracy by putting legal fictions on the …

CEOs, in particular founder-CEOs, are often visionaries with strong beliefs about the right strategic direction for their firms. For example, Apple CEO and founder Steve Jobs was known to be obsessed with product quality and design. The strategy to produce …

In October of 2021, news media across the world reported on what was said to be the largest leak ever of offshore data, exposing the rampant use of anonymous shell companies by the rich and the powerful. Branded the Pandora …

Related party transactions (RPTs) are a common corporate governance concern that cuts across many jurisdictions but remains hard to regulate. Allowing value-increasing RPTs while preventing the value-decreasing ones in a cost-effective way is a challenging task for regulators. Jurisdictions do …

Research has shown that venture capital (VC) firms substantially influence the overall economy. According to Gornall and Strebulaev (2021), among all U.S. public companies founded since 1968, VC-backed companies account for 77 percent of total market capitalization, 41 percent of …

Corporate earnings are an important source of information for many market participants, yet managers have a certain degree of discretion over the earnings that they report. Given this discretion, there is a large literature that tries to understand whether firms …