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Too Big To Fool: Moral Hazard, Bailouts, And Corporate Responsibility, Steven L. Schwarcz
Too Big To Fool: Moral Hazard, Bailouts, And Corporate Responsibility, Steven L. Schwarcz
Faculty Scholarship
Domestic and international regulatory efforts to prevent another financial crisis have been converging on the idea of trying to end the problem of “too big to fail”—that systemically important financial firms take excessive risks because they profit from success and are (or at least, expect to be) bailed out by government money to avoid failure. The legal solutions being advanced to control this morally hazardous behavior tend, however, to be inefficient, ineffective, or even dangerous—such as breaking up firms and limiting their size, which can reduce economies of scale and scope; or restricting central bank authority to bail out failing …
Controlling Systemic Risk Through Corporate Governance, Steven L. Schwarcz
Controlling Systemic Risk Through Corporate Governance, Steven L. Schwarcz
Faculty Scholarship
Most of the regulatory measures to control excessive risk taking by systemically important firms are designed to reduce moral hazard and to align the interests of managers and investors. These measures may be flawed because they are based on questionable assumptions. Excessive corporate risk taking is, at its core, a corporate governance problem. Shareholder primacy requires managers to view the consequences of their firm’s risk taking only from the standpoint of the firm and its shareholders, ignoring harm to the public. In governing, managers of systemically important firms should also consider public harm. This proposal engages the long-standing debate whether …
Keynote Address, Regulating Corporate Governance In The Public Interest: The Case Of Systemic Risk, Steven L. Schwarcz
Keynote Address, Regulating Corporate Governance In The Public Interest: The Case Of Systemic Risk, Steven L. Schwarcz
Faculty Scholarship
There’s long been a debate whether corporate governance law should require some duty to the public. The accepted wisdom is not to require such a duty—that corporate profit maximization provides jobs and other public benefits that exceed any harm. This is especially true, the argument goes, because imposing specific regulatory requirements and making certain actions illegal or tortious can mitigate the harm without unduly impairing corporate wealth production. Whether that is true in other contexts, this paper—delivered as the keynote address at the June 2016 National Business Law Scholars Conference at The University of Chicago Law School—questions if it’s true …
Corporate Risk-Taking And Public Duty, Steven L. Schwarcz
Corporate Risk-Taking And Public Duty, Steven L. Schwarcz
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.