John G. Matsusaka

John G. Matsusaka is the Charles F. Sexton Chair in American Enterprise in the Marshall School of Business, Gould School of Law, and Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Southern California. His research focuses on political economy and corporate government, in particular on direct democracy and representation. He teaches classes on corporate finance, corporate governance, political economy, and microeconomics. His research has been published in leading journals in economics, finance, political science, and law, and he is the author of two books, most recently, Let the People Rule: How Direct Democracy Can Meet the Challenge of Population (2020).

Investors Should Engage With Firms They Want To Go Green, Not Divest

How can investors use capital markets to encourage emissions reductions? In new research, Matthew E. Kahn, John G. Matsusaka, and Chong Shu examine whether public pension funds are more effective in mitigating pollution when they divest from fossil fuel companies or actively engage their management.

Voters Still Believe Politics is About the Common Good, Not Just Rent-Seeking

Do voters still believe that politics can be a source for common-good policies and not just partisan bickering and rent-seeking? With political polarization at...

A Challenge for Stakeholder Capitalism: Solving the Paradoxes of Voting

If corporations are to maximize shareholder welfare, managers need to discover what shareholders value; political theory shows how difficult this can be. Editor’s note: To...

How to Get Police Reform Done? Use Direct Democracy

Instead of just imploring their representatives to fix things, Americans can use the tools of direct democracy to take charge and promote meaningful policing...

Turning Corporations into Democracies

The problem with encouraging firms to maximize shareholder welfare is how to prevent managers and special interests from diverting corporate resources in the name of shareholder...

Does Empowering Shareholders Also Empower Special Interests?

The merits of increasing shareholder power are less obvious than reforms that increase companies' exposure to pressure from activist shareholders, since increasing shareholder power tends to...

Enhancing Competition? The Role of Governance in Increasing Exposure to Competition

Contemporary corporate governance reform has been a mixed bag: reforms that increase a company’s exposure to competition through the control market have been helpful,...

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