Kobi Kastiel
Kobi Kastiel is a Professor of Law at Tel Aviv University, Faculty of Law. He also serves as a Senior Research Fellow at the Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance, a non-resident Affiliate Fellow of the Stigler Center at University of Chicago, and a Research Member at the European Corporate Governance Institute. Kastiel teaches and researches in the fields of corporate law and corporate governance, with a particular focus on public companies with controlling shareholders, shareholder activism and stakeholder governance.
ESG, Corporate Governance & Future of the Firm
How Much Do Investors Care About Social Responsibility?
Study participants are less likely to accept lower returns in support of social goals when acting as investors versus consumers or donors with a third accepting no reduction in returns. Additionally, those with higher income, women and Democrats were willing to accept lower return in support of social goals than those with lower income, men, Republicans and Independents.
Big Tech
Twitter’s Corporate Leaders Pushed their Stakeholders under the (Musk) Bus
In a new study, we examine whether, in negotiating the sale to Elon Musk, Twitter’s corporate leaders took into account the commitments...
ESG, Corporate Governance & Future of the Firm
How Enlightened is Enlightened Shareholder Value?
There has been growing support for replacing the traditional corporate purpose with so-called “enlightened shareholder value,” which would guide firms to consider...
ESG, Corporate Governance & Future of the Firm
Are “Bankruptcy Directors” Bad for Creditors?
A new paper studies the rise of so-called “bankruptcy directors,” typically former bankruptcy lawyers, investment bankers, or distressed debt traders who join...
Covid-19
How the Covid-19 Pandemic Put Corporate Stakeholder Promises to the Test
Prior to the outbreak of Covid-19, corporate leaders pledged to look after all stakeholders, not just deliver value to shareholders. Did they...
News
For Whom Corporate Leaders Bargained: What the Past Can Teach Us About the Questionable Promise of Implementing Stakeholder Capitalism Today
The debate about stakeholder capitalism should seek to learn from our experience with constituency statutes, which authorized corporate leaders to take into...
Latest news
Income Inequality
Uninhibited Campaign Donations Risks Creating Oligarchy
In new research, Valentino Larcinese and Alberto Parmigiani find that the 1986 Reagan tax cuts led to greater campaign spending from wealthy individuals, who benefited the most from this policy. The authors argue that a very permissive system of political finance, combined with the erosion of tax progressivity, created the conditions for the mutual reinforcement of economic and political disparities. The result was an inequality spiral hardly compatible with democratic ideals.
ESG, Corporate Governance & Future of the Firm
Did the Meme Stock Revolution Actually Change Anything?
Many financial commentators thought that the surge of retail investors participating in the stock market, the most notable of whom boosted “meme stocks” like GameStop, would democratize corporate governance and improve prosocial firm behavior, including the promotion of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. In new research, Dhruv Aggarwal, Albert H. Choi, and Yoon-Ho Alex Lee find evidence that the exact opposite took place.
Antitrust and Competition
The Kroger-Albertsons Merger Will Not Help Grocery Competition
Kroger and Albertsons say they need to merge to compete with Walmart. Claire Kelloway argues that what they really want is Walmart’s monopsony power, and permitting mergers on these grounds will only harm suppliers, workers, and consumers.
Research
Innovators Respond to Their Presidential Candidate Winning With More Innovation
Does an inventor’s political identity influence their productivity? In a new paper, Joseph Engelberg, Runjing Lu, William Mullins, and Richard Townsend examine the impacts of the 2008 and 2016 United States presidential elections on Democrat and Republican inventors, with a particular focus on the quantity and quality of patents after the country elects a new president.
Antitrust and Competition
Letter to the Editor: Former FTC and DOJ Chief Economists Urge Separation of Economic and Legal Analysis in Merger Guidelines
Seventeen former chief economists of the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division urge current Agency heads to separate the legal and economic analysis in the draft Merger Guidelines to strengthen the role of the latter in merger review.
Antitrust and Competition
Why the Kroger-Albertsons Merger Is a Mess for Consumers
Grocers Kroger and Albertsons want to merge, which would make them the second biggest retail food chain and, according to them, enhance their ability to compete with Walmart and Costco and offer lower prices to consumers. Christine P. Bartholomew writes that the promises of more competition and lower prices for consumers are unlikely to manifest, and thus the Federal Trade Commission should block the deal.
Book Excerpts
After Neoliberalism
The following is an excerpt from Martin Daunton's new book, "The Economic Government of the World: 1933-2023," out November 14.
