Sky Blog
Whose interests do public pension funds serve? On the one hand, they have a fiduciary duty to maximize value for the pension fund participants whose retirement savings they invest. On the other, they can use their considerable ownership stakes to …
In a new article, we focus on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement of the CEO and CFO certification requirement pursuant to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). The article analyzes the appropriate interpretation of the statute’s reach, the SEC enforcement proceedings …
Stock trading by corporate insiders has long drawn interest because of its implications for corporate governance, market integrity, and regulatory oversight. However, the question of whether and how CEOs’ non-routine insider trading influences the trading behavior of other insiders remains …
Institutional investors such as mutual funds, pension funds, and exchange traded funds (ETFs) play a prominent role in today’s economy. According to the CFA Institute, institutional investors now hold over $70 trillion in investable assets and thus wield immense influence …
Each year, a significant number of publicly listed companies in the U.S. face the departure of their CEOs. While these transitions are inevitable, they represent critical moments in a company’s lifecycle, often leading to long-lasting financial and strategic problems when …
The decision to appoint a new CEO is among the most critical and strategic choices a corporation can face, as it can significantly influence the organization’s future. A key consideration is whether to promote an internal candidate or recruit one …
In recent years, scholars and other observers have expressed starkly different understandings of the political landscape of corporate America. While the conventional wisdom has cast large American businesses as a conservative stronghold, others have reached the opposite conclusion, arguing that …
In recent years, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) metrics have become important factors in determining executive compensation as companies, investors, and regulators aim to align executives’ interests with broader societal goals. But are these metrics effective in generating incentives for …
The 2008-2009 global financial crisis (GFC) has cast a pall over several corporate governance mechanisms in many firms worldwide. Nonetheless, how the firms treated their female directors in the aftermath and whether they maintained gender diversity on their boards remain …
For decades, advocates of “shareholder primacy” as the North Star of corporate governance have steered our leading corporations and our Nation’s economic engine perilously off-course. Since the 1970s, when the work of Milton Friedman, Michael Jensen, and Frank …
After several years of dramatic growth, ESG investing seems to have entered a period of retrenchment. While it is impossible to predict the future trajectory of ESG, the movement has revealed important structural features of our financial system and the …
The media often highlights hefty CEO compensation packages featuring lucrative stock grants, restricted shares, and stock options. The rationale for offering such equity-type compensation to top executives is to align the interests of managers and shareholders to mitigate agency conflicts …
Managers have strong incentives to present a favorable image of their companies to investors, analysts, and the public, raising concerns about the credibility of voluntary disclosures. These concerns are particularly severe for unaudited forward-looking disclosures because they are often qualitative …
Active and retired top executives are prime candidates for outside director positions. Conventional wisdom suggests that these individuals’ experience equips them to serve effectively as monitors and advisers to management. Nevertheless, the business press has revealed that some executives remain …
The ongoing controversy surrounding the artificial intelligence company OpenAI, Inc. (OpenAI) offers valuable, broad-based governance lessons for corporate boards across industry sectors and regardless of whether they are for-profit or non-profit companies. The lessons include those relating to mission restrictions, …
CEOs are increasingly stepping into the limelight, not as business leaders but as activists. From advocating for LGBTQ+ rights to speaking out on gun control and police use-of-force, CEOs now engage on many polarizing social and political issues. Scholars have …
In recent years, certain CEOs have gained remarkable prominence and influence not only within the business world, but also in mainstream media. These “superstar” CEOs are portrayed as exceptional, charismatic, and innovative leaders capable of extraordinary financial results. In other …
Institutional investors with long-term horizons, referred to as dedicated institutional investors, have a positive impact on corporate innovation. Studies (e.g., Gormley and Matsa, 2016; Jiang and Yuan, 2018; Kim, et al. 2019; Kedia et al., 2020) have consistently documented that …
Information disclosed by corporations plays a fundamental role in shaping asset prices and the expectations of investors. That information typically comes in financial statement releases, conference calls, annual reports, and the news media. In a recent paper, though, we …
Executive compensation and corporate taxation are both hot button issues, but can they be related? In a recent paper, we examine how CEO bonus contracts reinforce global tax incentives and show that executive pay practices helped drive corporate activity …