This paper examines the role of the “Big Three” (i.e., BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street Global Advisors) on the reduction of corporate carbon emissions around the world. Using novel data on engagements of the Big Three with...
In 2017, “The Big Three” institutional investors launched campaigns to increase gender diversity on corporate boards. We estimate that their campaigns led firms to add at least 2.5 times as many female directors in 2019 as they...
The U.S. securities markets have recently undergone (or are undergoing) three fundamental transitions: (1) institutionalization (with the result that institutional investors now dominate both trading and stock ownership); (2)...
This paper describes different forms of ownership across countries and how these forms influence the way companies are governed. In most stock markets in the world, listed companies frequently have a controlling shareholder, usually...
Voting outcomes can differ from underlying preferences due to strategic selection into voting. One explanation for such selection effects is lower participation of shareholders with popular preferences (free-rider effect)...
How do active managers engage with portfolio firms? And, what role does monitoring and engagement play in their trading decisions? We use proprietary data from a large UK active asset manager with a long-standing commitment to...
Universal owners can systemically diffuse their investment preferences to a large share of the market. We use the unexpected release of a corporate governance expectation document by Norway’s sovereign wealth fund as a natural...
This Article analyzes the conduct of mutual funds in shareholder litigation. We begin by reviewing the basic forms of shareholder litigation and the benefits such claims might offer mutual fund investors. We then investigate, through...
This Article offers a theory of mutual fund voting to answer when mutual funds should vote on behalf of their investors and when they should not. It argues that voting authority for mutual funds ought to depend upon: (1) whether the...
Index funds own an increasingly large proportion of American public companies. The stewardship decisions of index fund managers—how they monitor, vote, and engage with their portfolio companies—can be expected to have a...
A widely accepted principle in finance is that good corporate governance is associated with higher firm value. However, what is “good governance” and whether the same set of good governance practices can be universally adopted are...
Institutional investors are becoming increasingly influential on firm policies. The rise in intermediated investment, coupled with growing...Read more