The Rhetoric and Reality of Shareholder Democracy was submitted by Jang-Sup Shin for publication in response to my post Predatory Value Extraction, a review of the book of that title by Professors Shin and Lazonick. Comments on The Rhetoric and Reality of Shareholder Democracy are invited in the box below. (more…)
Phelps’ Mass Flourishing: How Grassroots Innovation Created Jobs, Challenge, and Change by Edmund S. Phelps. Important issues are discussed but the typology, especially the characterization and treatment of corporatism, is problematic. (more…)
We Three Kings: Disintermediating Voting at the Index Fund Giants (download at SSRN) by Caleb N. Griffin provides insight as to how investors could influence the Big Three index funds — BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street, as those funds exercise increasing power over the economy. Like me, Griffin is interested in extending democracy to corporate […]
Jill Fisch, et al. addresses a central myth around index funds and investors in Passive Investors (June 29, 2018). Her research has implications applicable to recent analysis and recommendations by Delaware Supreme Court Chief Justice Leo E. Strine Jr., Professor Lucian Bebchuk and others. The following is the central highlight: Our key insight is that although […]
Index Providers Speak: Policy Process and Voting Rights Index providers spoke at #CIIFall2017 about how they develop their policies. Specifically, they discussed recent developments around voting rights. Index Providers Represented Annalisa Barrett, Clinical Professor of Finance at the University of San Diego (Moderator) David Blitzer, Managing Director & Chairman of the Index Committee, S&P Dow Jones Pavlo Taranenko, Executive Director, Index […]
Buying and holding stocks and bonds for the long term and maintaining a diversified portfolio are still the smartest strategies for the average investor, says Vanguard founder Jack Bogle in answer to Mark Cuban and other critics of these traditional approaches. In the Big Interview with Journal columnist Jason Zweig, Bogle takes aim at the […]
Publisher’s Note: Yes, you’ll find many broken links in the material referenced below. After 5, 10 and 15 years, the internet moves on. Many of the organization’s linked have since gone under. We’re just glad to still be here, offering our readers a sense of the history we have shared. More about the WABAC machine. Five […]
GMI Ratings signed a licensing agreement with Global Index Group to develop corporate governance indices. The new set of indices will incorporate non-traditional risk metrics developed by GMI Ratings. (more…)
The factors that brought about the tech bubble, the collateralized debt obligations crash and the rest are being replicated with ETFs: floods of cash and tidal surges of ingenuity in the markets advancing faster than the regulators’ event horizon. via Fair exchanges?, Inside Investor Relations, 6/29/2011 ‘ETFs, indexes and ‘closet indexers’ among mutual funds already […]
Bogle sees Index Funds, which hold 25% of all stock, as the best hope for governance. However, he acknowledges free rider problem, potential conflict of interests for offending clients. Hopes we will gradually break down the barriers. These are the funds that have held for three years or more, so these are the funds that […]