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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Public Choice Problem In Corporate Law: Corporate Social Responsibility After Citizens United, David Yosifon
The Public Choice Problem In Corporate Law: Corporate Social Responsibility After Citizens United, David Yosifon
Faculty Publications
The Supreme Court held in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission (2010) that the First Amendment forbids Congress from restricting the political speech of corporations. While corporate theory did little to inform the Court’s thinking in Citizens United, this Article argues that the holding in Citizens United requires us to rethink corporate theory. The shareholder primacy norm in American corporate governance relies on the assumption that corporations can be restrained from influencing external governmental operations. We can enjoy the efficiencies generated by shareholder primacy in corporate governance, mainstream corporate theorists have long argued, because we can rely on external regulation …
Towards A Firm-Based Theory Of Consumption, David Yosifon
Towards A Firm-Based Theory Of Consumption, David Yosifon
Faculty Publications
Corporate theory typically construes consumption activity as involving a series of arms-length, atomistic transactions in which consumers exchange money for discrete corporate goods or services. Canonical accounts expect satisfied consumers to engage in repeat transactions, but the transactions themselves are (implicitly or explicitly) assumed to be isolated, fully contained dealings with the firm. Such a view of consumption supports the inference that consumers can readily manage their own interests in corporate operations through serial decisions to “take it,” “leave it,” repeat, or refuse to repeat patronization of a firm. This assessment plays an important part in justifying American corporate governance …
Is Social Enterprise The New Corporate Social Responsibility?, Antony Page, Robert A. Katz
Is Social Enterprise The New Corporate Social Responsibility?, Antony Page, Robert A. Katz
Faculty Publications
Since at least the famous Berle-Dodds debate, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and later its more muscular and structural iteration, progressive corporate law, have been discussed without much progress. The authors consider whether the social enterprise movement, which envisions a new sector of businesses created both to generate profits and pursue social goals, advances this debate. They conclude that it does. Proponents of social enterprise believe that such businesses can combine the dynamism of for-profit firms with the mission-driven zeal more typical of nonprofit organizations. Social enterprise and CSR have much in common: both want businesses to take the interests of …
Beyond Profit: Rethinking Corporate Social Responsibility And Greenwashing After The Bp Oil Disaster, Miriam A. Cherry, Judd F. Sneirson
Beyond Profit: Rethinking Corporate Social Responsibility And Greenwashing After The Bp Oil Disaster, Miriam A. Cherry, Judd F. Sneirson
Faculty Publications
The explosion of the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon and subsequent oil spill stand as an indictment not just of our national energy priorities and environmental law enforcement; they equally represent a failure of Anglo-American corporate law and what passes for corporate social responsibility in business today. Using BP and the disaster as a compelling case study, this Article examines green marketing and corporate governance and identifies elements of each that encourage firms to engage only superficially in corporate social responsibility yet trumpet those efforts to eager consumers and investors. This Article then proposes reforms and protections designed to increase corporate social …