For centuries, our systems of banking, money, and payments have been legally and institutionally intertwined. The fact that these three—theoretically distinct—systems have been bundled together so...
Initial coin offerings (ICOs) are a significant innovation in entrepreneurial finance. The sale of a blockchain-based digital token associated with a specific platform or venture is a new financing instrument with some parallels to...
Current shareholder engagement systems face large classical inefficiencies. First, due to the large chains of intermediaries in the current securities models, transaction costs are high and shareholder votes and other information...
We live in a world that has historically been dominated by centralized, hierarchical organizations. Such organizations are characterized by (i) a centralized source of authority; (ii) a formal hierarchy with clearly defined...
Over recent decades, the on-going “digital revolution” has transformed many aspects of everyday life. Think of the increased power and shrinking size of personal computers and smartphones; the global expansion of the Internet...
Innovation and its main output, technology, are changing the way we work, socialise, vote, and live. New technologies have improved our lives and made firms more productive, overall raising living standards across the world. Thanks to...
In a technology-driven, digital world, many of the largest and most successful businesses now operate as “platforms.” Such firms leverage networked technologies to facilitate economic exchange, transfer information, connect...
We develop a theory of blockchain governance. In our model, the proof of work system, which is the most common set of rules for validating transactions in blockchains, creates an industrial ecosystem with specialized suppliers of...
A significant development in the global economy over the last two decades has been the emergence of businesses that organize and define themselves as “platforms.” By platform, we refer to any organization that uses digital or other...
Can algorithms assist firms in their decisions on nominating corporate directors? Directors predicted to do poorly by algorithms indeed do poorly compared to a realistic pool of candidates in out-of-sample tests. Predictably bad...
Regulatory arbitrage refers to structuring activity to take advantage of gaps or differences in regulations or laws. Examples include Facebook modifying its terms and conditions to reduce the exposure of its user data to strict...
This article introduces the term Corporate Technologies (“CorpTech”) to refer to the use of distributed ledgers, smart contracts, Big Data analytics, AI and machine learning in the corporate context and analyzes the impact of...