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Proxy Voting’s Hidden Influence on Corporate Takeovers and Activist Campaigns

Roslyn Layton writes that proxy advisors, which provide voting services for shareholder meetings, can influence how publicly traded firms conduct their business. Two proxy firms–Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS)–have 97 percent of the market and have allowed some minority shareholders to exercise outsized influence.

Exxon’s Suit Against Its Own Shareholders Threatens Valuable Bargaining

Colleen Honigsberg and Robert J. Jackson, Jr. write that Exxon Mobil’s decision to sue its own investors over a shareholder proposal threatens to enervate an admittedly imperfect but ultimately valuable mechanism that provides shareholder feedback to corporate managers and helps both parties negotiate better governance outcomes.

Is Democracy Relevant to the Way We Govern Public Companies?

On May 29, Exxon Mobil held its 2024 corporate election. Before the election, the company sued two investors over their proposal to include a commitment in its proxy statement to accelerate the company’s reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Sarah Haan argues that the election and the lawsuit shed more light on current upheavals in corporate democracy than they do on the success of the ESG movement.

US Taxpayers Should Not Be Subsidizing Harmful Big Oil Mergers

Chevron and ExxonMobil claim their announced mergers with Hess and Pioneer take advantage of market efficiencies, but a closer look reveals an antiquated tax provision likely sweetening these dangerous deals. Antitrust authorities must carefully review the serious risks entailed in these proposed mergers. In parallel, the United States federal government needs to end large tax-free reorganizations—the most egregious way in which American taxpayers are subsidizing monopolistic practices, writes Niko Lusiani.

CEOs Have Real Incentives To Promote ESG

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.

How the ‘Market Share Opportunism’ of Investment Advisers is Harming Investors and Public Companies

Investment advisors on both sides of the aisle have coopted ESG for their own exploitative marketing tactics to increase their own assets under management...

Five New Pieces You Should Read from Chicago Booth Review

Chicago Booth Review recently published its fall issue covering a variety of new research. We suggest five articles from the issue on topics of...

Should ESG-Driven Investors and Stakeholders Divest or Engage? A Stigler Center/Rustandy Center Panel Explores

Should investors and stakeholders who wish to influence companies to promote desirable social and environmental outcomes focus on actions like divestment and boycotts (exit),...

How Much Can We Trust Index Funds on Climate Change?

According to a theory that is gaining support among academics and practitioners, we should expect index fund managers to undertake the role of “climate...

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