shareholder value
Corporations Are Governance Mechanisms, Not Shareholder Toys
Milton Friedman’s shareholder credo is simple and catchy but has shaky foundations. Corporate directors and officers are not agents of shareholders and have no...
Beyond Friedman’s Doctrine: The True Purpose of the Business Corporation
The pandemic and the renewed focus on inequality and injustice arising in the wake of the death of George Floyd have accelerated the conversation...
Market Forces Already Address ESG Issues and the Issues Raised by Stakeholder Capitalism
When do market forces push firms toward stakeholder goals, rather than just shareholder goals? When do market forces push firms toward ESG goals? When...
Missing in Today’s Shareholder Value Maximization Credo: The Shareholders
Today’s corporate world is very different from the one Milton Friedman wrote in. In a world where the question of whether managers should only...
Which Problems Should Companies Try to Solve?
It is true that capitalism needs to be inclusive in its benefits, but 50 years on, Friedman’s shareholder primacy remains the right place to...
“50 Years Later, It’s Time to Reassess”: Raghuram Rajan on Milton Friedman and Maximizing Shareholder Value
The biggest problem with shareholder value maximization is that it completely turns a tin ear to politics. The alternative is to maximize the value...
It Is Time to Move on From Friedman’s View of the Corporation
The anti-CSR position defended by Friedman would be acceptable only under conditions that have never been met by any real-world economy. Furthermore, the notion...
The Real Effects of Environmental Activist Investing
A new study examines the efficacy of climate-focused investor engagements initiated by the New York City Pension System. Its findings support the view that...
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 Enduring Wisdom of Milton Friedman
Shareholder value maximization has been extremely successful globally in the way that matters most because, in many cases, maximizing shareholder value is in harmony...
