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HLS Faculty & Senior Fellows
Program on Corporate Governance Advisory Board
- Peter Atkins
- David Bell
- Kerry E. Berchem
- Richard Brand
- Daniel Burch
- Paul Choi
- Jesse Cohn
- Arthur B. Crozier
- Renata J. Ferrari
- Andrew Freedman
- Ray Garcia
- Joseph Hall
- Jason M. Halper William P. Mills
- David Millstone
- Theodore Mirvis
- Philip Richter
- Elina Tetelbaum
- Sebastian Tiller
- Marc Trevino
- Steven J. Williams
Author Archives: Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation
Street Name Registration: An Antiquated Idea
“Street name registration” largely took root under emergency conditions stemming from a paperwork crisis during the 1960s, before networked computers were ubiquitous in trading markets. Immobilizing stock and registering it in the name Cede &Co., which was presumed by many to a temporary measure, now undermines our ownership culture. Just as poker chips allow us […]
Click here to read the complete postA Gap-filling Theory of Corporate Debt Maturity Choice
In our paper A Gap-filling Theory of Corporate Debt Maturity Choice, which was recently accepted for publication in the Journal of Finance, we develop a new theory to explain time-variation in corporate maturity choice. As in BGW (2003), our theory allows for predictability in bond market returns and has the feature that corporate issuers tend […]
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Posted in Academic Research, Accounting & Disclosure, Empirical Research
Tagged Bonds, Corporate debt, Market timing, Maturity choice
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FDIC and Private Capital: Moving the Goal Lines
Editor’s Note: Margaret E. Tahyar is a partner and member of the New York Financial Institutions Group at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. This post is based on a Davis Polk client memorandum by John Douglas, Luigi De Ghenghi, Arthur Long and William Taylor. For the second time since adopting its Final Statement of Policy […]
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Posted in Financial Crisis, Financial Regulation
Tagged Banks, Failed banks, FDIC
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Why Investment Bankers Should Have (Some) Personal Liability
Commentators on this blog and elsewhere have discussed solutions to problems that caused the most recent financial crisis. A pervasive theme has been the excessive appetite for risk in the banking industry and the impact of compensation on attitudes toward risk. Some commentators have proposed making stock-based compensation more “long term” by requiring bankers to […]
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Posted in Academic Research, Executive Compensation, Financial Crisis
Tagged Corporate liability, Financial crisis
5 Comments
Restoring Trust in Corporate Governance
Editor’s Note: Ben W. Heineman, Jr. is a former GE senior vice president for law and public affairs, a senior fellow at Harvard University’s schools of law and government and trustee of the Committee for Economic Development. This post is based on a Policy Brief by Mr. Heineman published by the Committee for Economic Development, […]
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Posted in Boards of Directors
Tagged Board leadership, Boards of Directors, Financial crisis, Financial regulation, Governance reform
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Financial Strength and Product Market Behavior
Seldom has corporate strategy been turned on its head so quickly. Not long ago, cash holdings were considered a dangerous thing to accumulate and companies that hoarded large cash positions were viewed with a great deal of suspicion. However, the recent market turmoil and the resultant tightening of credit have clearly emphasized the advantage of […]
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Posted in Academic Research, Empirical Research
Tagged Asset tangibility, Cash reserves, Firm valuation, Liquidity
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Supreme Court Strikes Down Restrictions on Corporate Speech
On January 21, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a groundbreaking decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which held that portions of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law banning corporate and union expenditures on political speech violate the First Amendment. The decision also calls into question similar restrictions on corporate speech in two dozen […]
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Posted in Court Cases, Practitioner Publications
Tagged Citizens United v. FEC, Political spending, Supreme Court
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The Corporate Consequences of the Supreme Court’s Decision
Last week, the US Supreme Court ruled that the Congressional limit on corporations and labor unions advertising for and against political candidates violates free speech principles. Constitutional law scholars, the media and the public will debate whether corporations are entitled to free speech protections and Congress may revisit campaign contribution limits and public funding. But […]
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Posted in Academic Research, Court Cases, HLS Research, Op-Eds & Opinions
Tagged Citizens United v. FEC, Political spending, SEC
2 Comments
The Harvard Law School Proxy Access Roundtable: The Transcript
The Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance recently released as a working paper the transcript of the Program’s Proxy Access Roundtable, which was held late last year. The working paper containing the transcript is available here. The editors, Lucian Bebchuk and Scott Hirst, have also submitted the transcript to the Securities and Exchange Commission […]
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Posted in Academic Research, Corporate Elections & Voting, HLS Research, Program News & Events
Tagged Proxy access
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CEO Cash Compensation and Poor Firm Performance
In our paper, Is CEO Cash Compensation Punished for Poor Firm Performance?, which was recently accepted for publication in the Accounting Review, we examine the asymmetry in the CEO pay-performance relation. In particular, we examine whether CEO pay is more sensitive to poor stock price performance than to good performance, as claimed by Leone, Wu, […]
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Posted in Academic Research, Empirical Research, Executive Compensation
Tagged Executive Compensation, Executive performance, Stock performance
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