Robert Jackson
Robert J. Jackson Jr. was appointed by President Donald Trump to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and was sworn in on January 11, 2018. Commissioner Jackson has extensive experience as a legal scholar, policy professional, and corporate lawyer. He comes to the SEC from NYU School of Law, where he is a Professor of Law. Previously, he was Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and Director of its Program on Corporate Law and Policy. Commissioner Jackson’s academic work has focused on corporate governance and the use of advanced data science techniques to improve transparency in securities markets. He was the founding director of Columbia Law School’s Data Lab, which used cutting-edge technology to study the reliability of corporate disclosures. Commissioner Jackson has written more than 20 articles in the nation’s most prestigious legal and economics journals. His published work includes a study shining light on trading activity before the announcement of major corporate events, the first study of the effect of mandatory disclosure required by the JOBS Act on trading by individual investors, and the first comprehensive study of CEO pay in firms owned by private equity. In 2012, Columbia Law School students honored Commissioner Jackson with the Willis L.M. Reese Prize for Excellence in Teaching. He has testified on his scholarship before the U.S. Senate, and his work was previously the subject of rulemaking commentary before federal agencies, including the Federal Reserve and the SEC. Before joining the Columbia Law School faculty in 2010, Commissioner Jackson served as a senior policy advisor at the U.S. Department of Treasury working with Kenneth Feinberg, the Special Master for TARP Executive Compensation. In this role, he oversaw the development of policies designed to give shareholders a say on pay, improve the disclosure of executive bonuses, and encourage TARP recipients to more closely tie pay to performance. Earlier in his career, Commissioner Jackson practiced law in the executive compensation department of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Commissioner Jackson holds two bachelor’s degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School of Business, a master’s degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a law degree from Harvard Law School. He was born in the Bronx, New York, and is a lifelong Yankees fan.
ESG & Corporate Governance
The SEC's Proposal on Proxy Advisor Regulation Shields CEOs From Accountability to Investors
SEC Commissioner Robert Jackson dissented from his SEC colleagues' proposal on how to reform proxy advisors regulation. New rules, he argues, would introduce a...
Antitrust and Competition
Does the European Union Use Its Antitrust Power for Protectionism?
The European Commission’s 2001 decision to stop GE’s acquisition of Honeywell might be the most famous of its several decisions to interfere in mergers...
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Antitrust and Competition
Creation over Time in Copyright and Patent
On May 18, the United States Supreme Court decided two intellectual property cases with two seemingly different results. A closer look, however, reveals a complimentary concern with the monopolistic power of first movers and how the legal system should enable innovation from second movers over time, writes Randy Picker.
Event Notes
ESG Standards’ Good, Bad and Ugly
The Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State hosted a virtual event discussing the standards, metrics and disclosures of investments focused on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) goals. The following is a transcript of the event.
Commentary
Reregulate.
Lee Hepner and William J. McGee respond to Clifford Winston’s ProMarket piece asserting that further deregulation of the airline industry would resolve problems in the industry. Instead, the authors claim a return to regulation would produce better results for travelers.
Antitrust and Competition
A World With Far Fewer Mergers
Brooke Fox and Walter Frick analyze research and ideas presented at the Stigler Center Antitrust and Competition Conference that question the value of mergers.
Commentary
The Banking Risks of Central Bank Digital Currencies
The implementation of central bank digital currencies as the primary medium of exchange would exacerbate the flaws of our current fiat system which encourage banks to overextend credit and create liabilities that they cannot redeem. This will worsen the already recurring cycles of financial crises, writes Vibhu Vikramaditya.
Antitrust and Competition
The Whig History of the Merger Guidelines
A pervasive "Whig" view of United States antitrust history among scholars and practitioners celebrates the Merger Guidelines' implementation of increasingly sophisticated economic methods since their...
Antitrust and Competition
Algorithmic Collusion in the Housing Market
While the development of artificial intelligence has led to efficient business strategies, such as dynamic pricing, this new technology is vulnerable to collusion and consumer harm when companies share the same software through a central platform. Gabriele Bortolotti highlights the importance of antitrust enforcement in this domain for the second article in our series, using as a case study the RealPage class action lawsuit in the Seattle housing market.