Commentary by faculty and affiliates of the Duke Law Global Financial Markets Center
According to a foundational precept of company law,[1] companies have separate legal personality and limited liability.[2] The distinct legal personality and limited liability of each entity within a corporate group is also recognized.[3] A parent company is normally not liable for the legal infractions and unpaid debts of its subsidiaries. However, the direct imposition of duty of care […]
A growing literature investigates how investors’ gambling behavior affects their investment decisions and asset returns. This literature shows that investors with a taste for gambling concentrate their trading in stocks with lottery-like payoffs, such as stocks with high volatility. In addition, prior studies show that in sports betting, such as racetrack gambling, bettors consistently over […]
There is an important international debate on whether there is underenforcement of corporate laws that reduces law’s deterrent value. For example, American scholar John Coffee believes that there is a crisis of underenforcement of the law against corporations in the United States. Our recent research examines this issue in Australia by investigating prosecutions from 2009 to 2018 under Australia’s […]
We have always thought of the problem of monopoly as a problem of size or of markets. We say that Facebook is a monopoly because it is too big, or because it is in the nature of networked markets to reward scale. But what if the problem of monopoly were really a problem of firm governance? […]
The relation between corporate voluntary disclosure and stock liquidity plays an important role in our understanding of managers’ information supply incentives and market quality. Studies on the relation between voluntary disclosure and liquidity primarily explore how voluntary disclosure affects liquidity. This line of the literature suggests that voluntary disclosure is useful in shaping liquidity in that it alleviates information […]
Equity crowdfunding (ECF)—also referred to as securities crowdfunding or investment crowdfunding—is an alternative finance model that was projected to become the leading source of funding for start-up companies by 2020 ahead of venture capital. To emphasize its economic impact, in previous scholarship we estimated that in 2018 alone, over $400 million was raised through ECF from just four countries: […]
Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) are crucial players in the world economy. They shape global production through Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), are responsible for about two-thirds of international trade flows, and are important transnational employers. Their activities are thus of primary interest both for academic economists and policymakers. From the host countries’ standpoint, FDI is frequently praised for […]
Our study investigates the Morellec and Zhdanov (2008) prediction that firms strategically underleverage to win future takeover contests. Since firms undergo arduous and long planning processes well in advance of publicly announcing an acquisition bid, they also pre-plan their financial structure. Recent survey evidence by Aktas et al. (2021) suggests that almost half of all […]
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and several other social media companies have once again fallen under public scrutiny. This time, Congress is investigating several social media platforms in connection with the January 6thinsurrection. Further, Facebook recently conducted its own research on Instagram users, and company documents acknowledge the app negatively impacts mental health. While researchers continue to study the negative effects […]
On 15 March 1599, the people of Banda Island (Banda Lonthoir), in what is now eastern Indonesia (see Figure 1), beheld a foreign ship with an unknown flag. It turned out to be the Geldria, commanded by Dutch Admiral Jacob van Heemskerk, spearheading a Dutch merchant fleet. About two decades later, a violent and repressive attack […]