Interior designers and lawyers
The WSJ and I have been discussing the myriad idiotic licensing laws that help strangle entrepreneurship in the US. Last up was cat groomers. Today it’s interior designers: Florida is one of only three states that require commercial interior designers to become licensed before they hang a single painting in an office building, school or ... Interior designers and lawyers
Congress jerks the SEC’s leash
Last week I argued that the SEC’s considering relaxing the rule requiring 1934 act registration of stock classes with more than 499 shareholders was not what it seemed. I noted that while this might look like a move toward liberalization by permitting more Facebook-style markets, it actually furthered a trend toward closing US securities markets ... Congress jerks the SEC’s leash
Modes of mixing law and economics
Geoff Miller has a new must-read paper on the relationship between law and economics: Law and Economics versus Economic Analysis of Law. Here’s the abstract: This paper distinguishes law and economics – conceived as an equal partnership between two disciplines – and economic analysis of law, conceived as the application of economic reasoning to legal ... Modes of mixing law and economics
Scalping Next
So Alinea’s Grant Achatz has a new restaurant, Next, which is the talk of Chicago and the nation. You can buy transferable dining tickets which the NYT reports are being traded online up to $3,000. So now we see that even chefs can be like Hannah Montana. Alinea caps sales at two tables/customer given a ... Scalping Next
Closing the US securities markets
The WSJ reports that the SEC is considering raising the 500-shareholder limit on the number of holders of a class of securities a company can have before having to register that security with the Commission under Section 12(g) of the 1934 Act. The SEC reportedly is also considering relaxing the “general solicitation” restriction on private ... Closing the US securities markets
Corporate governance, incentive compensation and the uncorporation
Acharya, Gabarro and Volpin’s Competition for Managers, Corporate Governance and Incentive Compensation has interesting insights and data on both corporate governance and executive compensation debates. In the final analysis, I think it’s most interesting for what it says about the uncorporation. Here’s the abstract: We propose a model in which firms use corporate governance as ... Corporate governance, incentive compensation and the uncorporation
Why not more securities disclosure?
Steve Davidoff discusses materiality issues in the GS Abacus transaction, Gupta/Galleon, Apple and Jobs’ health and Sokol. He questions “quirky” American securities laws that don’t require continuous disclosure of material information, and a materiality standard which “allows lawyers and others to argue that something is not material because they didn’t think it was certain or ... Why not more securities disclosure?
Greenberg, Spitzer and AIG
James Freeman, reviewing Roddy Boyd’s new book about AIG in the WSJ, discusses how Eliot Spitzer forced Hank Greenberg out of AIG in March 2005, and the consequences of that move: What is certain is that the world’s largest insurer was abruptly separated from the world’s most experienced risk manager at the worst possible moment. ... Greenberg, Spitzer and AIG
Learning Groupon in law school
The March-April University of Chicago magazine discusses a class at Booth on online entrepreneurship co-taught by Groupon cofounders Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell. The article says each received law degrees [from Michigan] in 1993. Law school, Keywell says, “is one of the great mechanisms for understanding how to think critically about the world,” and essential ... Learning Groupon in law school
Tomorrow at Illinois: Law practice in the US and China
I’m participating in a mini-conference comparing the two countries featuring David Mao of the Library of Congress and Sida Liu, a sociologist from Wisconsin. Should be interesting.
When markets let corporations be good
In my article, Accountability and Responsibility in Corporate Governance, I explored the complex relationship between social responsibility and markets. I noted among other things that social responsibility is a way to sell products, so it’s hard to untangle whether success let’s firms be “good,” or whether “goodness” causes firms to be successful. A new article ... When markets let corporations be good
IPOs going elswhere
A couple of months ago I asked “what happened to IPOs.” I noted then that the decline in US IPOs had something to do with US regulation, including SOX and Dodd-Frank. A new paper by Doidge, Karolyi & Stulz, The U.S. Left Behind: The Rise of IPO Activity Around the World suggests it has something ... IPOs going elswhere
