Sky Blog
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. …
Patent thickets are dense webs of overlapping intellectual property rights. They are common in industries ranging from semiconductors to smartphones to pharmaceuticals. When many firms own the underlying patents, thickets complicate licensing negotiations and increase the risk of holdup and …
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 …
Last June, Benedetto Vigna became the new CEO of Ferrari NV, joining the company from semiconductor manufacturer STMicroelectronics NV. The chairman of Ferrari noted Vigna’s “deep understanding of the technologies driving much of the change in our industry,” and the …
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 …
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 …
In addition to providing legal protection, patents serve a disclosure function aimed chiefly at inventors and technology customers. However, the effect of this disclosure on capital markets has been left largely unexamined in the literature, creating a gap in understanding …
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 …
There is an emerging consensus that antitrust law promotes innovation. According to this theory, a monopolist has little reason to create superior goods and methods unless those efforts would increase the monopolist’s market power. In fact, a monopolist can preserve …
Tax regulators and acquisition sponsors have long been embroiled in a cat and mouse game in the context of corporate inversions—cross-border transactions in which a U.S.-incorporated public corporation is “acquired” by a foreign entity, and the survivor’s locus of incorporation …