On November 20, SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda called for the opening of 401(k) retirement savings to private markets.  He observed that diversification has grown increasingly difficult to achieve through public securities alone, and that private investments (in structures such as …

A central challenge to the effectiveness of shareholder voting is the collective action problem, where dispersed individual shareholders lack sufficient incentives to use their voting rights effectively. The problem is prevalent among retail investors, whose small ownership stakes and minimal …

Over the past two decades, investor demand for firms’ non-financial information, particularly Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) data, has surged. This has led to the emergence of numerous ESG rating agencies, which assimilate and transform complex, non-financial disclosures into more …

In a recent paper, we explore the engagement practices of public company shareholders and offer several important insights.

First, contemporary shareholder-company engagement is a multi-dimensional and evolving phenomenon with shareholders using, to varying degrees, a wide range of engagement techniques. …

How much – and why – do individual investors value ESG-related activities of firms? In a new working paper, we shed light on these questions by studying how retail investors transact in their personal portfolios around a primary source …

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, …

Since 2020, new retail investors have flooded the securities markets, opening a record number of new brokerage accounts. Due to the ease of investing through commission-free trading apps and the ability to purchase fractional shares, a broader segment of the …

Dramatic trading in GameStop, AMC, and other “meme stocks” has reignited debates about the efficiency of the stock market, its purposes, and whose interests it should serve. The changing role of retail investors and meme investors, a subset of retail …

SPACs are on fire. Scholars and commentators have pointed out  the flaws of SPACs, including the various agency problems they generate (Klausner 2021), and their utilization by sophisticated investors to take advantage of unsophisticated investors (Spamann, …

The special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, is a company with no commercial or operating history that has listed on a stock exchange with the sole objective of raising financing to identify and acquire another company.   SPACs developed after the …

The influence of retail investors on the stock market is controversial among experts. Some studies conclude that retail investors are uninformed, overconfident investors who assess risk poorly and thus destabilize the financial markets (e.g., Grinblatt and Keloharju, 2009; Barber and …

Social media is widely used to create, disseminate, and consume information. Today, around seven in 10 U.S. adults use social media.[1] Additionally, more than half of Americans at least occasionally obtain news through social media.[2] In financial markets, …

The Securities and Exchange Commission recently offered a full-throated explication of its premise that investment advisers are subject to a federally imposed fiduciary standard under the Investment Advisers Act (IAA).[1]   The premise, grounded in cryptic Supreme Court dicta, served …

For over a decade, hedge funds and other sophisticated traders have taken advantage of ordinary Americans who sought to share in the rewards of entrepreneurship and economic growth by investing in public companies.  My research has identified tens of billions …