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Can Pensions Be Saved from Political Mismanagement?
The Department of Labor is currently working on a new rule that would give pension fund managers greater leeway in considering non-financial criteria…
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New Analysis on ESG Investing: Friedman, Edmans, and Materiality
At times it seems like public events on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing are a dime a dozen; some think tank, consulting firm,…
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Public Interest Groups Challenge Nasdaq Diversity Rule in Federal Court
Back in August, I wrote about the new board diversity requirements on Nasdaq-listed companies that had been approved by the Securities and…
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Retro Review: The Social Responsibilities of Business (1970)
The Biblical book of Ecclesiastes reminds us that “there is no new thing under the sun.” Even centuries before the modern era, our…
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Federalist Society Experts Duel on Climate Risks and Regulation
Earlier this week, the Federalist Society presented a panel discussion titled “Corporate Social Responsibility, Investment Strategy, and Liability Risks” that addressed some important…
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Capitalism and Corporations: Respect Stakeholders, But Follow the Law
Last week the Law & Economics Center at George Mason University hosted a fascinating event here in Washington, D.C. on the debate over…
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Nasdaq’s Board Diversity Rule Still a Mistake
On Friday the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved a new rule from Nasdaq that will require firms listed on that exchange to…
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Do We All Deserve a Share of the World’s Natural Resources?
In early July I wrote an op-ed for Inside Sources, which was subsequently picked up by several newspapers, on why the United States…
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Reviewing SEC Climate Disclosure Comments
Earlier this week, I wrote a short summary of the comments from myself and my colleague Marlo Lewis to the Securities…
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Climate Disclosure Comments to the SEC
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Allison Herren Lee solicited comments on climate change from the public back on March 15, and the deadline…
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Should the SEC Require More Climate Data from Public Companies?
This week, Case Western Reserve University law professor (and CEI alum) Jonathan Adler hosted a fascinating event titled “Climate Change, Financial Markets…
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New Study: Defusing the ESG Threat to Shareholder Rights
Today the Competitive Enterprise Institute published my new study on theories of enlightened investing, Environmental, Social, and Governance Theory: Defusing a Major Threat…
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Expect Search for Corporate Virtue to Get Increasingly Expensive
Last week I wrote about a video from the Financial Times that was meant to explain environmental social, and governance (ESG) investing.
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Americans Ambivalent about Billionaire Influence, Reject Left-Wing Hostility
New polling, recently written up at Reason, shows that the American public isn’t nearly as hostile to capitalism, and the leaders of…
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Will Anyone Challenge the SEC’s Ever-Expanding Authority?
This question of redefining a government agency’s mission arose last week during an event hosted by George Mason University’s Center for the Study…
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Perspectives on “Woke Capital” and Politicized Investing
Recently, the Competitive Enterprise Institute hosted a virtual book event for Political Forum publisher Steve Soukup’s new book, The Dictatorship of Woke…
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Federalist Society and SEC’s Roisman on Future of ESG, Corporate Governance
Yesterday the Federalist Society held an excellent virtual event on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental, social and governance (ESG) theory, addressing “the…
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CEOs Join Davos Wonks to Launch New Corporate ESG Disclosures
Axios’ “cheerful iconoclast” Felix Salmon reported earlier this week on an agreement by dozens of major corporations to support a new system…
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BlackRock’s Larry Fink: Fight COVID with Climate Activism
Larry Fink, CEO of mega asset management firm BlackRock, has released his annual pair of letters—one to the CEOs of companies that BlackRock…
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Gensler Agenda at SEC Bears Close Watching
President Biden has chosen former head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Gary Gensler as his nominee to be chair of the Securities and…
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Biden Team Expected to Take Hatchet to Pension Protection Rule
The Department of Labor, under the leadership of Secretary Eugene Scalia, implemented an important (though widely misunderstood) rule this year, regarding how federally regulated…
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Retro Review: The Communist Manifesto (1848)
The manifesto of the Communist party, written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1847 and first published the next year, has a legendary…
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Millennials, Gen Z Optimistic about Hard Work Leading to Prosperity
The Walton Family Foundation released an interesting survey recently that found that Generation Z (ages 13–23) and Millennial (ages 24–39) Americans are more…
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High CEO Pay Isn’t Making Anyone Poor
While most American are still following the final vote counts in the 2020 presidential election, many lower-profile, but still important, issues have been decided…
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Boeing Declines to Blackmail Washington Taxpayers, Threatened by Governor in Return
Boeing recently announced plans to consolidate all production of its 787 Dreamliner jet, moving some existing work from the company’s traditional home in…
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Pension Managers Must Focus on Retiree Security, Not Politics
A new proposed rule from the Department of Labor on pension funds would clarify the responsibilities of pension fund fiduciaries covered under the Employee Retirement…
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CEI Event with Hester Peirce and Paul Atkins: ESG, Crypto, and other SEC Hot Topics
Yesterday, in the most recent installment of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s “Repeal for Resilience” event series, CEI President Kent Lassman welcomed Securities and Exchange…
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Climate Cronyism: Big Businesses Tailor Policy to Benefit Themselves
A shorter version of this post was published as an op-ed in the Washington Examiner last week. The Business Roundtable (BRT), an…
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Do We Want Corporations to Be Society’s Moral Referees?
The New York Times is observing the 50th anniversary of Milton Friedman’s famous article “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its…
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Socialism, Nationalism, and Political Control: Iain Murray on The Remnant
My colleague Iain Murray had a fascinating conversation this week with The Remnant’s Jonah Goldberg about his excellent new book, The Socialist…
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Good Vibes for Sale: The Business of Cultural Innovation
The current issue of Harvard Business Review has a fascinating article by former business school professor and brand consultant Douglas Holt. He advises…
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ESG Mission Creep Could Lead to Serious Legal, Market Risks for Companies
An increasing number of U.S. corporations are signaling their commitment to corporate social responsibility by integrating environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues into their…
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Good Vibes for Sale: The Business of Cultural Innovation
The current issue of Harvard Business Review has a fascinating article by former business school professor and brand consultant Douglas Holt. He advises companies looking to innovate…
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Demise of ESG Investing Overstated
The Department of Labor’s recent notice of proposed rulemaking on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors in pension fund investments has received a…
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Don’t Let Feds Become Investing’s Sheriff of Nottingham
Investing company Robinhood and its signature smartphone app have taken off in popularity in the last several months. According to Bloomberg, Robinhood has “catapulted ahead…
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Demise of ESG Investing Overstated
The Department of Labor’s recent notice of proposed rulemaking on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors in pension fund investments has received a lot of…
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Cheers to Department of Labor for Protecting Retiree Investments
At the end of last month the Department of Labor published a new notice of proposed rulemaking on the investment choices that private pension fund…
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Wealthy Millennials Not So Concerned with “Socially Responsible” Investing
In the last few years advocates of corporate social responsibility theory have been assuring everyone who would listen that a new day is dawning for…
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Secretary Scalia to Pension Funds: Manage for Returns, Not Virtue Signaling
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Labor Secretary Scalia explains the reasoning behind a proposed rule reaffirming that pension funds should focus on providing benefits…
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Anti-Corporate Author: Get Over Your Vanity and Just Read “Impeccable” New York Times
Are you struggling to stay informed in an Internet landscape full of conflicting sources and analysis? Good news—a New York Times bestselling author (and former…
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Value of Employee Benefits in Eye of Beholder
Advocates of “social responsibility” and environmental, social, and governance standards for companies have little interest in their proposed requirements being voluntary, despite frequent protestations to…
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“Social Responsibility” Expectations for Business Pivot from Voluntary to Mandatory
The Financial Times reported that many companies have cut dividends to shareholders because they are struggling with the current economic downturn. But even after we’ve…
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There Is No Such Thing as “Safe”
Iain Murray has a great essay up at Law & Liberty today on why some groups of Americans are perceiving quarantine policies so differently from…
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Lean on Business Leaders to Defend Markets
One on the main goals of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Advancing Capitalism is for more business leaders to prioritize the defense of the…
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Retro Review: Irving Kristol’s “Two Cheers for Capitalism”
Long before we began debating the wisdom of neoconservative foreign policy, Irving Kristol was writing about domestic economic policy and the future of capitalism. His…
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New Profile in Capitalism: Ariel Corporation CEO Karen Wright
Some CEOs seem to have more hours in the day than others. Such is the case of Karen Wright, the head of Ariel Corporation, a…
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Shield Employers from COVID-19 Liabilities Created by Government
Now that government officials and business owners are planning for a “semi-normal” phase of post-quarantine reopening, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s recent “Implementing a National…
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VIDEO: Cato Experts on Coronavirus and the Constitution
Recently three legal experts from the Cato Institute hosted a fascinating discussion of recent pandemic-related legal enactments, “Coronavirus and the Constitution.” Ilya Shapiro, Trevor Burrus,…
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VIDEO: Road Map to Reopening
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce hosted a fascinating video conference this week entitled “Big Picture: Road Map to Reopening,” with the Chamber’s Suzanne Clark and…
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Memo to BlackRock: Drop Activist Agenda, Focus on Recovery
Should large institutional investors find and support profitable firms or adopt the tactics of left-wing pressure groups to force companies into adopting a political agenda?…