Does Dividend Policy Have a Political Dimension? The British Case

Dividende, Corporate Governance, Großbritannien, Dividend, United Kingdom

Executive Pay: What Worked?

CEO pay is a controversial issue in America but there was a time, often overlooked today, when chief executives were not paid nearly as much as they are now. From 1940 to the mid-1970s executive pay was modest by today’s standards even though U.S. business was generally thriving. What worked to keep executive pay in check? Economist Thomas Piketty and others credit high marginal income tax rates, leading to calls for a return to a similar tax regime. This paper casts doubt on the impact tax had and also shows that neither the configuration of boards nor shareholder activism played a significant role in constraining executive pay. It emphasizes instead the roles played by strong unions, a different and more circumscribed market for managerial talent, and social norms, explanations that do not easily lend themselves to generating modern policy prescriptions.This is the author accepted manuscript. It is currently under an indefinite embargo pending publication by the University of Iowa

Is Berle and Means Really a Myth?

Adolf Berle and Gardiner Means famously declared in 1932 that a separation of ownership and control was a hallmark of large U.S. corporations, and their characterization of matters quickly became received wisdom. A series of recent papers has called the Berle–Means orthodoxy into question. This survey of the relevant historical literature acknowledges that the pattern of ownership and control in U.S. public companies is not monolithic. Nevertheless, a separation between ownership and control remains an appropriate reference point for analysis of U.S. corporate governance.</jats:p

Dividends and politics

This paper contributes to a growing literature on politics and corporate governance by providing an empirical analysis of the impact of political factors on dividend payouts. The focus is on the determinants of dividend policy in U.K. public companies between 1949 and 2002. We augment Lintner's [Lintner, J., 1956. Distribution of incomes of corporations among dividends, retained earnings, and taxes. American Economic Review 46, 97–113.] partial adjustment model by including measures of politics and test the model using aggregate annual dividends and earnings data. We find neither the political placement of the party in power nor regulations explicitly designed to regulate corporate behaviour correlate in the direction political theories of corporate governance would predict

Corporate Law’s Critical Junctures

What accounts for substantial legal change? With corporate law, many think a stock market crash is key. But not all crashes lead to reform. So, what else is necessary? This paper uses a “critical junctures” model borrowed from social science to explain when and why major corporate law change happens. The model indicates that a combination of a lengthy period of depressed share prices and a perception that business wrongdoing was integrally related to the slump are required to create the window of opportunity for significant and enduring reform. It follows that the COVID-19 pandemic is unlikely to serve as a catalyst for major changes to corporate law.Non