Finance

Many financial commentators thought that the surge of retail investors participating in the stock market, the most notable of whom boosted “meme stocks” like GameStop, would democratize corporate governance and improve prosocial firm behavior, including the promotion of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. In new research, Dhruv Aggarwal, Albert H. Choi, and Yoon-Ho Alex Lee find evidence that the exact opposite took place.

In new research, Michal Barzuza, Quinn Curtis, and David Webber create a framework explaining why CEOs have powerful incentives to promote ESG, why these incentives are distinct from those of shareholders, why they are powerful despite the lack of governance mechanisms, and why they are at times excessive or skewed.

There are concerns among bankers and economists that commercial real estate prices are at risk of decreasing substantially. Joseph L. Pagliari, Jr. explains how commercial real estate should be priced based on current and projected inflation and interest rates. A subsequent article will explore if concerns about bank and broader economic vulnerabilities to lower CRE prices.

The following is an excerpt from Data Money: Inside Cryptocurrencies, Their Communities, Markets, and Blockchains by Koray Caliskan, now out at Columbia University Press.

Todd Gormley and Manish Jha find that institutional investors holding bonds may experience greater investor attention and more active shareholding voting on their equity positions.

In recent years, ESG reports have become more common for publicly traded companies. However, critics have found the information they provide to be inconsistent...

It has become fashionable for governments to issue “green” bonds to fund the transition to sustainability. However, sovereign green bonds as currently designed have...

A stock market that has priced in the transition risk away from greenhouse gasses would see higher future returns, the so-called carbon premium, for...

A large body of literature has produced uncertain conclusions about how elections affect firms’ access to credit. In a wide-ranging analysis of firm behavior...

The capital conservation buffer (CCB) was created after the 2008 financial crisis, instructing banks to retain their dividends in an escrow account and create a...