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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
Elements of Effective Systemic Regulation
In the wake of the financial crisis, there has been no shortage of approaches to regulatory reform, both here in Germany and globally. In a relatively brief period, we have witnessed a number of proposed changes to the rules and regulations that govern our industry and markets more broadly. Driving these are several common themes, […]
Click here to read the complete postWhy Financial Pay Shouldn’t be Left to the Market
(Editor’s Note: This post is Lucian Bebchuk’s most recent column in his series of monthly commentaries titled “The Rules of the Game” for the international association of newspapers Project Syndicate, which are available here.) Although some financial firms are reforming how they pay their employees, governments around the world are seriously considering regulating such firms’ […]
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Posted in Executive Compensation, Op-Eds & Opinions
Tagged Banks, Executive Compensation
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FDIC Final Policy Statement Onerous and Unclear
At a meeting of the Board of Directors of the FDIC on August 26, 2009, the FDIC adopted a Final Statement of Policy on Qualifications for Failed Bank Acquisitions. The final policy statement establishes standards and requirements for private investors acquiring or investing in failed insured depository institutions, including through holding companies formed for that […]
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Posted in Financial Crisis, Financial Regulation, Legislative & Regulatory Developments, Practitioner Publications, Private Equity
Tagged FDIC
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Capital Structure as a Strategic Variable
The standard corporate finance paradigm posits that a firm determines its optimal capital structure by making tradeoffs between the tax advantages of debt, the expected costs of financial distress, the impact of asymmetric information, and the implications for managerial incentives. But when financial policy affects a firm’s competitive position in product or input markets, […]
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Posted in Academic Research, Accounting & Disclosure, Empirical Research
Tagged Contracts, Corporate debt, Labor markets
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SEC Commissioner Sets Out Principles for Harmonization
(Editor’s Note: The post below by Commission Aguilar is a transcript of his remarks at the Joint Meeting of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission last week.) Good morning. I, too, would like to welcome the panelists and the members of the public present here, as well as those observing by […]
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Posted in Financial Regulation, Legislative & Regulatory Developments, Regulators Materials, Securities Regulation, Speeches & Testimony
Tagged CFTC, SEC
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25 Professors Submit Amicus Brief in Supreme Court Investment Advisory Case
Editor’s Note: This post is by John Coates of Harvard Law School. On September 3, 2009, twenty-five corporate law and finance professors and scholars – including several contributors to this blog – filed an amici curiae brief in the case of Jones et al. v. Harris Associate L.P. The case is now pending before the […]
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Posted in Court Cases, Securities Regulation
Tagged Fiduciary duties, Financial advisers, Jones v. Harris, Supreme Court
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Motives and Consequences Of Financial Regulation
The motives and consequences of financial regulation are once again being hotly debated in the current global financial crisis. However, this debate is hardly new. In my paper The Political Economy of Financial Regulation: Evidence from U.S. State Usury Laws in the 19th Century, which was co-written with Tobias Moskowitz of the University of Chicago […]
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Posted in Academic Research, Empirical Research, Financial Regulation, Securities Regulation
Tagged Financial regulation, Public interest, Usury
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Delaware Dominant in Choice of Law for Merger Agreements
In our paper “Delaware’s Competitive Reach: An Empirical Analysis of Public Company Merger Agreements” recently posted to the SSRN (and available here) my co-author Matthew Cain of the Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business and I evaluate the selection of governing law and forum clauses in merger agreements between public firms from 2004-2008. In contrast […]
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Posted in Academic Research, Empirical Research, Mergers & Acquisitions
Tagged Delaware articles, Delaware law, Delaware legislation, Edison v. Northeast Utilities
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CFOs, CEOs and Earnings Management
In our paper, CFOs and CEOs: Who Have the Most Influence on Earnings Management?, which was recently accepted for publication in the Journal of Financial Economics, we investigate whether Chief Financial Officer (CFO) equity incentives are associated with earnings management. Extant research has primarily focused on how chief executive officer (CEO) equity incentives affect […]
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Posted in Academic Research, Accounting & Disclosure, Empirical Research, Executive Compensation, Financial Regulation
Tagged CFOs, Earnings management, Equity-based compensation, Financial reporting, Incentives
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Treasury Proposes Comprehensive Supervision of OTC Derivatives
On August 11, the Treasury Department released the Over-the-Counter Derivatives Markets Act of 2009 (“OCDMA”), its legislative proposal to regulate the over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives industry. The proposed legislation provides an approach to comprehensively regulating OTC derivative transactions and the entities that enter into OTC derivatives transactions. Through its proposal, the Treasury Department is recommending the […]
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