Corporate Governance

Catalog description

The goal of this course is to introduce you to the area of corporate governance. We will discuss the goal of the corporation and the role of stakeholders in the decision making. We will examine the sources of the conflict of interest between controllers of the organization and shareholders. We will then study the different mechanisms to overcome these conflicts, their advantages and disadvantages. We will also devote time to study differences in corporate governance systems across different countries. I put a strong emphasis in this class on current events and real life examples. Among the topics covered: the role, responsibilities, and strategies of the board of directors, shareholder activism and the mechanisms used to protect shareholders, the takeover market, the tender offer mechanism, and anti-takeover measures, the design of compensation contracts, and differences among the above mechanisms across different countries. (MHA-EL)