Photo of Colleen Baker

PhD (Wharton) Professor Baker is an expert in banking and financial institutions law and regulation, with extensive knowledge of over-the-counter derivatives, clearing, the Dodd-Frank Act, and bankruptcy, in addition to being a mediator and arbitrator.

Previously, she spent time at the U. of Illinois Urbana-Champaign College of Business, the U. of Notre Dame Law School, and Villanova University Law School. She has consulted for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and for The Volcker Alliance.  Prior to academia, Professor Baker worked as a legal professional and as an information technology associate. She is a member of the State Bars of NY and TX. Read More

I only had 2 relevant SSRN postings in my Twitter feed the past 7 days, so I’m starting with 3 additional items I just pulled from “SSRN Top Downloads For Corporate Governance Network … for all papers first announced in the last 60 days” (available here).

more than 80% of IROs [Investor relations officers] report that they conduct private ‘call-backs’ with sell-side analysts and institutional investors following public earnings conference calls

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=2934937

Bargains between those who control corporations and those who control government institutions to benefit themselves ….

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=2909183

Lack of comparability due to the lack of reporting standards is the primary impediment to the use of ESG [environmental, social and governance] information.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=2925310

And here are the Tweets:

William W. Bratton has posted “The Separation of Corporate Law and Social Welfare” on SSRN. You can download the paper here. Here is the abstract:

A half century ago, corporate legal theory pursued an institutional vision in which corporations and the law that creates them protect people from the ravages of volatile free markets. That vision was challenged on the ground during the 1980s, when corporate legal institutions and market forces came to blows over questions concerning hostile takeovers. By 1990, it seemed like the institutions had won. But a different picture has emerged as the years have gone by. It is now clear that the market side really won the battle of the 1980s, succeeding in entering a wedge between corporate law and social welfare. The distance between the welfarist enterprise of a half century ago and the concerns that motivate today’s corporate legal theory has been widening ever since. This Essay examines the widening gulf. It compares the vision of the corporation and of the role it plays in society that prevailed during the immediate post-war era, before the fulcrum years of the 1980s, with the very different vision we have today, and traces the path we