Author Archives: Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation

A United Nations Blueprint to Promote Human Rights

Over the past decade, the United Nations has focused considerable attention on the protection of human rights in the conduct of global business. Leading this effort has been John Ruggie, a professor from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government who was appointed Special Representative to the U.N. Secretary-General. In 2008, the U.N. Human Rights Council embraced […]

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Posted in Corporate Social Responsibility, International Corporate Governance & Regulation, Practitioner Publications | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Corporate Law and Political Spending

Last week we presented our article, Corporate Political Speech: Who Decides?, at the Harvard Law Review’s annual Supreme Court Forum. The article is featured in the Review’s Supreme Court issue. The final version of the paper includes a substantial addition from prior versions: A section assembling empirical evidence on the potential financial significance of political […]

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Posted in Academic Research, Accounting & Disclosure, Corporate Elections & Voting, Court Cases, Empirical Research, HLS Research | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Pricing Corporate Governance

Do markets appreciate and correctly price the corporate-governance provisions of companies? In new empirical research, Alma Cohen, Charles C.Y. Wang, and I show how stock markets have learned to price anti-takeover provisions. This learning by markets has important implications for both managements of publicly traded companies and their investors. In 2001, three financial economists – […]

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Posted in Academic Research, Empirical Research, HLS Research, Mergers & Acquisitions | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Premium Pay for Executive Talent

In the paper, Premium Pay for Executive Talent: An Empirical Analysis, which was recently made publicly available on SSRN, we study the extent to which executive talent affects executive compensation design. Although the effect of executive-specific characteristics on firm choices and outcomes is the subject of a large literature in organizational theory, economics, and finance, […]

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Posted in Academic Research, Empirical Research, Executive Compensation | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Test-Driving a Hybrid Go-Shop

By now dealmakers are no doubt familiar with the “go-shop” which gained popularity during the 2006-2008 LBO boom as an alternative formulation to the traditional “no-shop” in sale agreements for public company targets. In a number of recent strategic deals an interesting hybrid formulation has been used under which the traditional no-shop prohibitions on post-announcement […]

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Posted in Mergers & Acquisitions, Practitioner Publications, Private Equity | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Synthetic Ownership Arrangements for Ambush Equity Accumulation

We have recently witnessed equity accumulations on both sides of the Atlantic that were first announced long after they began and long after the acquiring parties had effectively passed applicable disclosure thresholds.  Here in the U.S., Pershing Square and Vornado earlier this month announced a combined stake of almost 27% in J.C. Penney.  And last […]

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Posted in Accounting & Disclosure, International Corporate Governance & Regulation, Legislative & Regulatory Developments, Practitioner Publications, Private Equity, Securities Regulation | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Ownership Structure and the Cost of Corporate Borrowing

In the paper, Ownership Structure and the Cost of Corporate Borrowing, forthcoming in the Journal of Financial Economics, we study the financial consequences of the divergence between control rights and cash-flow rights in a large sample of companies across 22 East Asian and Western European countries during the period from 1996 to 2008. Specifically, we […]

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Posted in Academic Research, Banking & Financial Institutions, Empirical Research, International Corporate Governance & Regulation | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

The (Agency) Problem of Risk Incentives within Financial Institutions

In the paper, Downside Risk and Agency Problems in the U.S. Financial Sector: Examining the Effect of Risk Incentives from 2007 to 2010, I consider risk incentives within financial institutions in the presence of two types of potential agency problems: the standard manager-shareholder agency problem and the risk-shifting problem between shareholders and society. First, I […]

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Posted in Academic Research, Empirical Research, Executive Compensation, Legislative & Regulatory Developments | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

SEC Shapes New Disclosure Requirements

At an open meeting in September, the SEC voted to propose rules that would require a public company to provide certain enhanced disclosures about its short-term borrowings in its filings with the SEC. The SEC also voted to approve the issuance of an interpretive release to provide guidance regarding the SEC’s current disclosure requirements in […]

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Posted in Accounting & Disclosure, Practitioner Publications, Securities Regulation | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

How to Fix Bankers’ Pay

In a recent essay, written for a special issue of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Daedalus journal on lessons from the financial crisis, I discuss how bankers’ pay should be fixed. The essay, How to Fix Bankers’ Pay, discusses two distinct sources of risk-taking incentives: first, executives’ excessive focus on short-term results; and, […]

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Posted in Academic Research, Banking & Financial Institutions, Executive Compensation, HLS Research | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on How to Fix Bankers’ Pay