The Power of the Narrative in Corporate Lawmaking: 3CL Lecture

Speaker: Professor Mark Roe (Harvard Law School)
Chair: Felix Steffek (University of Cambridge)
Abstract: The notion of stock-market-driven short-termism relentlessly whittling away at the American economy’s foundations is widely accepted and highly salient. Presidential candidates state as much. Senators introduce bills assuming as much. Corporate interests argue as much to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the corporate law courts. Yet the academic evidence as to the problem’s severity is no more than mixed. What explains this gap between widespread belief and weak evidence?
Bio: Mark J. Roe is a professor at Harvard Law School, where he teaches corporate law and corporate bankruptcy. His research interests cover bankruptcy (corporate bankruptcy and reorganization), corporate law and corporate finance. He wrote Strong Managers, Weak Owners: The Political Roots of American Corporate Finance (Princeton, 1994), Political Determinants of Corporate Governance (Oxford, 2003), and Bankruptcy and Corporate Reorganization (Foundation, 2014). Academic articles include: Stock-Market Short-Termism’s Economy-Wide Impact (forthcoming); Containing Systemic Risk by Taxing Banks Properly, 35 Yale Journal on Regulation 181 (2018), Financial Markets and the Political Center of Gravity, 2 J. Law, Finance, and Accounting 125 (2017) (with Travis Coan); Bankruptcy’s Three Ages, 7 Harvard Business Law Review 187 (2017); Corporate Structural Degradation Due to Too-Big-to-Fail Finance, 162 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1419 (2014); Corporate Short-Termism - In the Boardroom and in the Courtroom, 68 Business Lawyer 977 (2013); and Breaking Bankruptcy Priority: How Rent-Seeking Upends the Creditors’ Bargain, 99 Virginia Law Review 1235 (2013) (with Frederick Tung).
3CL runs the 3CL Travers Smith Lunchtime Seminar Series, featuring leading academics from the Faculty, and high-profile practitioners.
For more information see the Centre for Corporate and Commercial Law website:
www.3cl.law.cam.ac.uk/