About
- Dean Takahashi ’80 B.A., ’83 M.P.P.M Professor of Finance
- Fischer Black Prize (2007)
- Editor, Review of Financial Studies (2005-2008)
Voting History
Question A: Research on the nature and impact of bank runs has made it possible to limit substantially the wider economic damage from financial crises.
| Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
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Comment: I think we have learned what can cause or exacerbate a bank run and that he led us to enact measures and policies that might help mitigate or slow it down. But, this is not my primary area of expertise.
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Question B: Reforms of financial regulation since 2008 (and macroprudential policies in some countries) will not substantially reduce the probability of financial crises.
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Comment: Financial crises do not occur frequently, hence it is difficult to know how effective reforms to prevent or lessen them will be. However, there is increasing micro evidence that supply-side channels have impact and hence reforms that target that could plausibly matter.
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Question A: The costs and risks associated with a sharp fall in the value of sterling outweigh any macroeconomic benefits for the UK of export stimulus due to a weaker currency.
| Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
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| Did Not Answer | |||
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Question B: Concerns about government finances and debt sustainability can undermine the reserve currency status of a major currency.
| Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
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| Did Not Answer | |||
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Question A: The typical chief executive officer of a publicly traded corporation in the U.S. is paid more than his or her marginal contribution to the firm's value.
| Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
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Comment: Unless you think the labor market for CEOs is inefficient and not competitive, where CEOs have some market power, they should be paid pretty close to their MP and there is reasonably high confidence that this market is pretty efficient.
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Question B: Mandating that U.S. publicly listed corporations must allow shareholders to cast a non-binding vote on executive compensation was a good idea.
| Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
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Comment: This mechanism for affecting compensation seems way less efficient and ineffective compared to competitive labor markets for talent. Seems like a waste of time with no impact.
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Question A: Having companies run to maximize shareholder value creates significant negative externalities for workers and communities.
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Comment: It's not clear theoretically that "significant negative externalities" would be created and I'm not aware of strong empirical work showing.
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Question B: Appropriately managed corporations could create significantly greater value than they currently do for a range of stakeholders – including workers, suppliers, customers and community members – with negligible impacts on shareholder value.
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Comment: Hard to imagine creating significant additional value for stakeholders without significant drop in share value.
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Question C: Effective mechanisms for boards of directors to ensure that CEOs act in ways that balance the interests of all stakeholders would be straightforward to introduce.
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Comment: Very hard to answer this question without having more evidence on the first two questions and how value is created for other stakeholders.
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Question A: A mandate for public companies to provide climate-related disclosures (such as their greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprint) would provide financially material information that enables investors to make better decisions.
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Comment: Right now climate disclosure is important to investors and with regulation may become financially relevant, but there is a lot of uncertainty about that and how much it will matter.
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Question B: A mandate for public companies to provide climate-related disclosures would provide material information that enables investors to make better decisions with regards to non-financial objectives (such as aiding portfolio choice based on ESG principles).
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Comment: While I strongly agree with the general sentiment that climate-related disclosures matter to investors, it really depends how useful those disclosures are and how accurate in terms of impact on the environment and climate change. That remains uncertain.
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Question C: A mandate for public companies to provide climate-related disclosures would induce them to reduce their climate impact substantially.
| Vote | Confidence | Median Survey Vote | Median Survey Confidence |
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Comment: This is highly uncertain and could go either way. Disclosure can induce a company to be more climate conscious or it can make them less so because they feel disclosure is "good enough." I don't think we know what the impact of such disclosure might be in equilibrium.
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