A new paper studies the rise of so-called “bankruptcy directors,” typically former bankruptcy lawyers, investment bankers, or distressed debt traders who join...
The so-called “opportunity theory” suggests that women are statistically underrepresented in white-collar offenses because they are underrepresented in higher corporate echelons. A...
The time has come for companies, economists, and society to abandon the argument that the only responsibility of business is to maximize profits.
Editor’s note:...
The accounting literature has long examined how public disclosures relate to firm competitiveness. If common ownership is in fact hurting competition, companies with owners...
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...
A new paper by Oliver Hart and Luigi Zingales argues that a company’s objective should be the maximization of shareholders’ welfare, not value.
In 1970,...
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,...
A new Stigler Center working paper finds that managers who resist shareholder proposals are typically acting responsibly, as opposed to acting on their own...
Two new reports concerning the Wells Fargo scandal suggest that the bank's senior management, its board of directors, and the regulators all knew about the bank's...
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.
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.
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.
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.