Corporate Governance
The Illusory Promise of “Stakeholderism”: Why Embracing Stakeholder Governance Would Fail Stakeholders
Stakeholderism—granting corporate leaders discretion to give weight to the interest of all stakeholders—should not be expected to deliver its purported benefits to stakeholders. Furthermore,...
Serving Shareholders Doesn’t Mean Putting Profit Above All Else
The time has come for companies, economists, and society to abandon the argument that the only responsibility of business is to maximize profits.
Editor’s note:...
Diversifying Corporate Boards — the Best Way Toward a Balanced Shareholder/Stakeholder System of Corporate Governance
Boards can recognize that their shareholders have needs beyond financial wealth maximization. Making corporate boards representative and diverse works better than co-determination or implied...
Friedman’s Principle, 50 Years Later
In the mid-1980s, Milton Friedman’s view that the only social responsibility of business is to increase its profits became dominant in business and academia....
Should Whistleblower Reward Laws be Capped?
The SEC is expected to approve a proposed rule change that could limit the amount of awards paid to whistleblowers, despite evidence that shows...
How Hedge Fund Performance Fees Fail Investors
In the hedge fund industry, there is a material disconnect between funds’ lifetime performance and lifetime incentive fees for managers. A new study analyzes...
Do People Think Finance Benefits Society?
A new paper seeks to measure popular sentiment toward finance based on mentions of “finance” in millions of books, spanning eight languages and hundreds...
Bethany McLean’s Weekend Reading List: Walmart, Opioids, Oil Prices (and Coronavirus)
Corruption, lobbying, corporate malfeasance, and frauds: a weekly unconventional selection of must-read articles by investigative journalist Bethany McLean.
Oh my goodness, say it isn't so:...
Virus-Enhanced Market Power: American Small Businesses Are Kept Hostages by Amazon
Amazon announced restrictions on the type of merchandise it will allow sellers and vendors to send into its warehouses because Amazon’s fulfillment services (FBA) has reached...
Elon Musk Wants to Get Paid. He Will Get His 2019 Bonus Thanks to an Accounting Magic
In March 2018, Tesla’s Board of Directors granted Musk a potential bonus of 20,264,042 stock option awards under a plan that uses “adjusted EBITDA” as one...
