Fall 2024 Workshop
Speaker Schedule
Law & Economics Colloquium
Sept. 16, 2024 (Mon)
4:20 – 6:10 PM
Gabriel Rauterberg
Professor of Law
University of Michigan Law School
Sarath Sanga
Professor of Law
Co-Director Yale Law School Center for the Study of Corporate Law
Yale Law School
Presentation (in-person only) will be in Case Lounge.
Altering Rules: The New Frontier for Corporate Governance
Should corporations enjoy total contractual freedom to design their governance? This question lies at the foundation of corporate law scholarship. Its practical relevance has been limited, however, because the mandatory status of corporate law’s most important rules were never in doubt. Until now. The leading authorities on corporate law—Delaware’s courts—are increasingly asked to enforce shareholder agreements that seek to contract around the very core of corporate law’s rules, including the fiduciary duty of loyalty and the central role of the board. The courts have responded by largely authorizing these experiments, and where they have limited contractual freedom, the Delaware legislature has stepped in to broaden it. A foundational debate has thus returned to the fore by force of transactional innovation: What limits, if any, should there be on corporations’ freedom to restructure their governance?
Sept. 30, 2024 (Mon)
4:20 – 6:10 PM
Wei Jiang
Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Finance
Vice Dean for Faculty and Research
Emory University, Goizueta Business School
Presentation (in-person only) will be in Case Lounge.
A Diverse View of Diverse Corporate Boards
Boards of U.S. public firms have shown progress in demographic diversity, but little progress in diversity of experience, skill, institutions, and viewpoints (proxied by political stance). The addition of directors who contribute to demographic diversity also contributes positively to experience and skill diversity, but has an asymmetric effect on viewpoint diversity. The addition of demographically diverse directors is associated with an increase (decrease) in political stance diversity among boards that were dominated by directors leaning Republican (Democratic), resulting in “bluer” boards for both groups. The asymmetric effect on viewpoint diversity cannot be explained by the availability of candidates of varying political stances. Finally, experience and skill diversity emerge as the most critical factors of boards in guiding firms through the unforeseen COVID-19 crisis.
Oct. 14, 2024 (Mon)
4:20 – 6:10 PM
Elisabeth de Fontenay
Karl W. Leo Distinguished Professor of Law
Duke University School of Law
Presentation (in-person only) will be in Case Lounge.
The Credit Markets Go Dark
Over the past generation, conflicting trends have reshaped the ownership of corporate equity on the one hand and corporate debt on the other. In equity, the two great trends have been the shift from public markets to private ownership and the consolidation of American companies’ stock in the hands of powerful investment funds. In debt, by contrast, the great trends have been a shift from private loans to quasi-public markets and dispersed ownership.
Oct. 28, 2024 (Mon)
4:20 – 6:10 PM
Joshua Macey
Associate Professor of Law
Yale Law School
Presentation (in-person only) will be in Case Lounge.
Private Profits and Public Business
Shareholder primacy is normally justified on the ground that shareholders’ financial interests give them an incentive to pursue projects that increase social
welfare. This alignment of interests occurs because shareholders hold a residual claim on firm value: they receive only what remains after the firm has met its contractual and regulatory obligations and therefore have a unique incentive to pursue innovative projects, increase profits, and keep costs down. According to the conventional view, third parties protect their interests through external mechanisms such as regulations and contracts negotiated against the backdrop of competitive markets.
Nov. 11, 2024 (Mon)
4:20 – 6:10 PM
Erik Hovenkamp
Professor of Law
Director of Competition Policy Research
Cornell Law School
Presentation (in-person only) will be in Case Lounge.
The Competitive Effects of Search Engine Defaults
The landmark antitrust case U.S. v. Google centers on vertical contracts in which Google pays device makers and web browsers to make Google Search the default search engine on their products. But the competitive effects of such arrangements are not yet well understood. To study them, I introduce a novel model of competition between two-sided search platforms, which earn all revenues on the advertiser side. Search algorithms “learn” and improve with use, effectively creating network effects on the consumer side. Defaults create switching costs that “nudge” consumers toward the default platform. Due to algorithmic learning, defaults can have significant competitive effects even if switching costs are small. Broad defaults (those affecting a large share of users) by a dominant platform reduce consumer welfare under most plausible conditions; they also suppress entry and investment by laggards. However, narrow defaults (particularly by laggards) can create positive spillovers and encourage entry and investment.
Nov. 18, 2024 (Mon)
4:20 – 6:10 PM
Raymond Fisman
Slater Family Professor in Behavioral Economics
Boston University
Presentation (in-person only) will be in Case Lounge.
Investing in Influence: Investors, Portfolio Firms, and Political Giving
Institutional ownership of U.S. corporations has increased ten-fold since 1950. We examine whether these new concentrated owners influence portfolio firms’ political activities, as a window into the larger question of whether institutional investors can wield their control to extract benefits from portfolio firms. We find that after the acquisition of a large stake, a firm’s political action committee (PAC) giving mirrors more closely that of the acquiring investment management company (in our preferred specification, a 31 percent increase in comovement). This pattern is observed for acquisitions driven by new index inclusions, which suggests that our findings result from a causal effect of acquisitions rather than other correlated shifts in political agendas. We argue that investors drive the convergence in giving - the effects are driven by more “partisan” investors, and we show that firms shift their giving more around acquisitions than investors do. Overall, our findings suggest that corporations’ political business strategies are likely dictated by broader considerations than simple profit, and modeling corporate influence should take into account how corporations are governed.
Dec. 2, 2024 (Mon)
4:20 – 6:10 PM
Dhruv Aggarwal
Assistant Professor of Law
Assistant Professor of Finance
Northwestern University, Pritzker School of Law
Presentation (in-person only) will be in Case Lounge.