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Socially responsible investing (SRI) involves considering environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues when picking stocks. Once a niche area of fund management, the volume of global sustainable investment in five major markets reached $35.3 trillion at the start of 2020, …
Capital market regulation often relies on two methods: imposing restrictions on the actions of parties with private information and requiring greater transparency about these actions. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) recent proposal targeting insider trading abuses follows this …
Thank you, Ken [Bentsen]. As is customary, I’d like to note that my views are my own, and I’m not speaking on behalf of my fellow Commissioners or the SEC staff.
1933 was an important year in SEC history.
No,
On June 21, 2021, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) weighed in on the economic situation in Africa, and the news was not good.
“African economies are at a pivotal juncture,” the IMF said. “The COVID-19 pandemic has brought economic activity …
Gathering additional information is an instinctive response to uncertainty. This behavior is found in many settings, perhaps most pervasively in capital markets. For example, if investors observe an earnings number that differs from what they expected, they might seek to …
Good morning, Chairman Quigley, Ranking Member Womack, and members of the Subcommittee. I’m honored to appear before you for the second time as Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission. It is good to be here alongside Federal Trade Commission
Can managers obtain more useful feedback from capital markets by disclosing pieces of information separately and at different times instead of bundling the information and releasing it at once? It is well known that capital markets’ response to firms’ announcements …
Securities law in the United States has traditionally been designed around a set of lines – the “public–private divide” – which separate public companies, public capital, and public markets from private companies, private capital, and private markets. Until the early …
Thank you for the kind introduction. As is customary, I’d like to note that my views are my own, and I’m not speaking on behalf of the Commission or SEC staff.
I’d like to share with you all that we
Thank you. It’s good to be here at the annual meeting of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association — what we all know as SIFMA. John [Rogers], I look forward to your questions.
As is customary, I will note
Which countries provide the strongest investor protection laws? How are such laws related to the level of capital market development and ownership concentration in public companies? In a series of influential works, La Porta, Lopez-de-Silanes, Shleifer and Vishny (1997, 1998, …
Research in finance and accounting consistently documents that a significant number of managers overstate reported earnings when true earnings miss a benchmark [1]. Managers face strong incentives to meet and beat important earnings thresholds, such as the analyst consensus forecast …
In a recent working paper, we look at what drives shareholder activism around the world and focus specifically on the role of corporate governance reforms.
While shareholder activism has been a force in U.S. capital markets for some time, …
At 11pm on December 31, 2020, the Brexit transitional period ended and the UK’s autonomous sanctions regime, consisting of approximately 30 regulations, came into force. It is largely based on the EU’s sanctions legislation that was previously implemented in the …
In 2013, Delaware passed legislation adopting a new corporate form, the public benefit corporation (PBC), with a view to allowing directors of for-profit corporations to take actions not just in pursuit of stockholder returns, but also with the “[intent] to …
From a systemic risk point of view, the SEC’s primary responsibilities[1] in this period of stress are three-fold:
The problems in global financial markets are often similar, even though the capital market structure across jurisdictions differs significantly. The beginning of the 21st century was marked by a spate of international corporate scandals, and the 2007-2009 global financial …
Securitization plays a critical role in the U.S. capital markets and can enhance liquidity in important sectors of the economy. In particular, residential mortgage-backed securities (“RMBS”) play a significant role in enhancing liquidity in the residential mortgage market and thereby
Welcome to the SEC’s 29th Annual International Institute for Securities Market Growth and Development.[1]
Thank you for being our guests over the next two weeks.
It is our honor to host 186 delegates from 69 countries this year.
Investor protection has been an ideal in corporate and securities law ever since the early 20th century, when Berle and Means famously highlighted shareholder vulnerability in modern public corporations. In more recent times, investor protection has been treated as …