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Full-Text Articles in Business Organizations Law
The Behavioral Economics Of Mergers And Acquisitions, Donald C. Langevoort
The Behavioral Economics Of Mergers And Acquisitions, Donald C. Langevoort
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The world of mergers and acquisitions seems like a setting in which rationality necessarily dominates. There are high stakes, focused and sustained attention, and expert advisers who are repeat players. In the economics and management literature, however, there has been a great deal of research on what might be called “behavioral M&A”—using insights from psychology to explain observed patterns of behavior in the acquisitions marketplace. To date, the law has largely been uninterested in the psychological dynamics of corporate acquisitions. This essay looks at recent research on such issues as the role of overconfidence, hubris, anchoring, etc. in explaining buy-side …
Chasing The Greased Pig Down Wall Street: A Gatekeeper’S Guide To The Psychology, Culture And Ethics Of Financial Risk-Taking, Donald C. Langevoort
Chasing The Greased Pig Down Wall Street: A Gatekeeper’S Guide To The Psychology, Culture And Ethics Of Financial Risk-Taking, Donald C. Langevoort
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The current financial crisis has once again focused attention on lawyers, corporate directors and auditors as gatekeepers, who are expected to introduce some degree of cognitive independence to the task of risk assessment and risk management in public companies, including financial services firms. This essay examines the psychological and cultural forces that may distort risk perception and risk motivation in hyper-competitive firms, beyond the standard economic incentives associated with agency costs and moral hazards, warning gatekeepers against too easily assuming that all is well when insiders display high levels of intensity, focus and devotion to hard-to-achieve goals. In fact, these …
The Post-Citizens United Fantasy-Land, Roy A. Schotland
The Post-Citizens United Fantasy-Land, Roy A. Schotland
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
First, a bouquet for the illuminating facts presented by Professors Wert, Gaddie, and Bullock. They make dramatically clear how minuscule independent spending by corporate PACs has been (that is, those PACs’ direct spending as distinct from support by those PACs or their corporate sponsors for spending by intermediaries like the Chamber of Commerce). Their showing is borne out by experience this year: corporate support for campaigns is almost all hidden, flowing through intermediaries, which is why getting effective disclosure is more important than ever, as the Court clearly recognizes (We probably owe much to Justice Kennedy for the fact that …