Sky Blog
Debates over Big Tech M&A often focus on “killer acquisitions,” where a dominant firm buys a startup in order to eliminate a future rival. A more subtle and, in some ways, more difficult problem is that innovation can lose momentum …
Issues of labor mobility gained significant attention last year following U.S. bans on non-compete agreements. While the debate on non-competes has many dimensions, this post focuses on how to address firm governance, improve labor welfare, and reduce the loss to …
Given their importance to corporate governance and often impressive credentials and experience, , many directors are “busy,” meaning they hold concurrent board appointments across multiple firms. These so-called “interlocks” between companies are a growing phenomenon, but not a new one. …
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 …
In a new paper, we investigate the relationships between institutional ownership, board diversity, and corporate innovation in U.S.-listed firms. Institutional investors play a crucial role in a firm’s operation and exert considerable influence on the efficient monitoring of innovative investment. …
Over the last several decades, financial regulators have increaAdd Newsed governance and reporting requirements for publicly listed firms, frequently with the goal of improving the reliability of financial information available to investors. The implicit assumption in such regulation …
Companies are typically not compelled to disclose environmental and social (E&S) information because this information does not meet the materiality standard used in many jurisdictions. However, some shareholders have an explicit mandate to screen potential investments based on E&S criteria. …
Both formal and informal institutions affect economic behavior in important ways, as economist Douglass C. North explained in his 1993 Nobel Prize lecture. Formal institutions include laws and regulations, and informal institutions include culture and norms. In a recent study, …
Firms’ increasing reliance on information technologies has reshaped the global economy and disrupted entire industries while also presenting new and rapidly evolving sources of risk. Recent successful cyberattacks have harmed consumers, shareholders, and market professionals, often resulting in the illegal …
There has been a growing debate among politicians and policy makers, both at the state and federal levels, about the impact of taxes on investment, growth, and firm value. The focus has been predominantly on corporate income tax cuts because, …
Innovation is the primary engine of growth in economies at the technological frontier, and a path to higher profits and growth for individual companies, as the likes of Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon make clear. CEOs play a crucial role …
Innovation and its main output, technology, are changing the way we work, socialize, vote, and live. New technologies have improved our lives and made firms more productive, raising living standards across the world. Thanks to progress in information technology, the …
The role of anti-takeover provisions (ATPs) in the corporate charters of firms has recently become a matter of considerable debate in the academic literature. On the one hand, earlier studies have argued that ATPs entrench firm management and therefore depress …
In a new paper, we seek to fill a gap in research on the possible benefits of dual class share structures and how they might promote innovation. We start with a bit of history.
Shareholder democracy has been fundamental to …
Close to 40 percent of all companies listed on major U.S. stock exchanges have been targeted by a securities class action lawsuit at least once between 1996 and 2017, according to the Stanford Securities Class Action Clearinghouse. These lawsuits are …
The role of institutional investors in modern society often goes underappreciated. In fact, the viability of many socio-economic systems is premised on institutional investors succeeding in their missions. Sovereign wealth funds help stabilize the macro-economy and currency prices, finance critical …
In an economic environment where technological disruption and regulatory upheaval are the norm, understanding innovation processes is essential to aggregate economic growth and individual companies’ survival. As a result, how innovations are produced in a wide range of markets …
Innovation is perhaps the single most important driver of productivity and growth. However, firms do not innovate in isolation but rather within an ecosystem of their technological peers, as many classic studies show. More recent work finds that a given …
The prescription drug industry has undergone a significant transformation in recent decades. The intensifying competition from generic drugs, the expanding power of entities that pay for drugs and negotiate drug prices, the increasing costs of drug development and gaining approval …
According to a recent survey of over 1,500 chief executive officers, creativity is the single most important leadership skill needed for enterprises to navigate today’s complex global business environment.[1] This is not surprising; innovative company culture has many benefits. …