| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
On-Going Board Reforms: One Size Fits All and Regulatory Capture
ETH Zurich and ECGI1
Proponents of board reforms assume that corporate structures and director-specific provisions matter. This paper argues that reformers have set minimum standards, but failed to take into account various trade-offs and regulatory capture effects. It is thus suggested that the flexibility of existing provisions be increased and that this new approach be used to improve shareholder protection against board failures in general and failures of institutional investor boards in particular.
1 I thank Lucian Bebchuk, Francesco Chiappetta, Luca Enriques, Colin Mayer, Elu von Thadden, and the participants in the ECGI/Oxford Review of Economic Policy conference on Corporate Governance (Saïd Business School, Oxford, 2829 January 2005) for their helpful comments.