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Law and Economics

Lynn A. Stout

Selected Works

Effective arbitrage

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Full-Text Articles in Law

Share Price As A Poor Criterion For Good Corporate Law, Lynn A. Stout Feb 2015

Share Price As A Poor Criterion For Good Corporate Law, Lynn A. Stout

Lynn A. Stout

Academics, reformers, and business leaders all yearn for a single, objective, easy-to-read measure of corporate performance that can be used to judge the quality of public corporation law and practice. This collective desire is so powerful that it has led many commentators to grab onto the first marginally plausible candidate: share price. Contemporary economic and corporate theory, as well as recent business history, nevertheless warn us against unthinking acceptance of share price as a measure of corporate performance. This Essay offers a brief reminder of some of the many reasons why stock prices often fail to reflect true corporate performance, …