Roberto Tallarita

Roberto Tallarita is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Law School. His research focuses on corporate law and governance, and on the political and moral dimensions of markets and corporations. Roberto's academic papers appear or are forthcoming in the Cornell Law Review, the Harvard Business Law Review, the Hastings Law Journal, the Journal of Legal Analysis, the Southern California Law Review, and the Vanderbilt Law Review. He has also published articles for a broader audience in The Atlantic, the Boston Review, and the Harvard Business Review. His research has been discussed, among other places, in Bloomberg Opinion, the Economist, the Financial Times, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

Who Will Enforce AI’s Social Purpose?

Elon Musk recently sued OpenAI over claims that the company has strayed from its social mission and has instead focused on profit maximization. Roberto Tallarita examines how Musk’s lawsuit shows well-intentioned corporate planners how hard it is to commit to an effective and enforceable social purpose and warns policymakers that relying on corporate self-regulation of AI could be a fatal mistake.

Have Business Roundtable Companies Lived Up to Their Stakeholder Commitments?  

In 2019, more than 100 CEOs of US public companies signed a Business Roundtable statement in which they pledged to deliver value to all...

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 stakeholder interests...

The Flaws and Limits of ESG-Based Compensation

Companies increasingly use ESG metrics in their compensation packages for CEOs. A new empirical study suggests that this practice has questionable promise and produces...

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 live up...

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...

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 account stakeholder...

The Illusory Promise of “Stakeholderism”: Why Embracing Stakeholder Governance Would Fail Stakeholders

Stakeholderism—granting corporate leaders discretion to give weight to the interest of all stakeholders—should not be expected to deliver its purported benefits to stakeholders. Furthermore,...

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