Corporate Short-Termism - In the Boardroom and in the Courtroom

A long-held view in corporate circles has been that furious rapid trading in stock markets has been increasing in recent decades, justifying corporate governance and corporate law measures, such as development and application of judicial doctrine, that would further shield managers and boards from shareholder influence, so that boards and managers are freer to pursue sensible long-term strategies in their investment and management policies. Here, I evaluate the evidence in favor of that view and find it insufficient to justify insulating boards from markets further. While there?s evidence of short-term distortions, the view is countered by several under-analyzed aspects of the American economy, each of which alone could trump a prescription for fuller board autonomy. Together they make the case for further judicial isolation of boards from markets untenable. First, even if the financial markets were, net, short-term oriented, one must evaluate the American economy from a system-wide perspective. As long as venture capital markets, private equity markets, and other conduits mitigate, or reverse, much of any short-term tendencies in public markets, then a short-term problem is potentially local but not systemic. Second, the evidence that the stock market is, net, short-termist is inconclusive, with considerable evidence that stock market sectors often overvalue the long term. Third, managerial mechanisms inside the corporation, and managerial labor markets across firms, are important sources of short-term distortions and the impact of these short-term favoring mechanisms would be exacerbated by further insulation of boards from markets. Fourth, courts are not well positioned to make this kind of basic economic policy, which if determined to be a serious problem is better addressed with policy tools wider than those available to courts. And, fifth, the widely held view that short-term trading has increased dramatically in recent decades may over-interpret the data; the duration for holdings of many of the country?s major stockholders, such as mutual funds like Fidelity and Vanguard, and major pension funds, does not seem to have shortened. Rather, a high-velocity trading fringe has emerged, and its rise affects average holding periods, but not the holding period for the country?s ongoing major stockholding institutions. The view that stock market short-termism should affect corporate lawmaking fits snugly with two other widely supported views. One is that managers must be free from tight stockholder influence, because without that freedom boards and managers cannot run the firm well. Whatever the value of this view and however one judges the line between managerial autonomy and managerial accountability to stockholders should be drawn, short-termism provides no further support for managerial insulation from the influence of financial markets. The autonomy argument must stand or fall on its own. Similarly, those who argue that employees, customers, and other stakeholders are due more consideration in corporate governance point to pernicious short-termism to further support their view. But these stakeholder considerations can be long-term and they can be short-term. As such, the best view of the evidence is similarly that the pro-stakeholder view must stand on its own. It gains no further evidence-based, conceptual support from a fear of excessive short-termism in financial markets. Overall, system-wide short-termism in public firms is something to watch for carefully, but not something that today should affect corporate lawmaking.