Initial coin offerings are fast becoming a new type of crowdfunding for blockchain-related startups. In this type of offerings, an entrepreneur raises capital through the creation and selling of virtual currencies or “tokens,” which themselves give rights to their holders (for example, access to a platform). As is to be expected, there are severe problems of information asymmetry associated with these instruments and… Read More »Paper Spotlight: The Wisdom of Crowds in FinTech: Evidence from Initial Coin Offerings

It is not just managers that can have a short-term orientation—the forthcoming theoretical paper “Competition for Flow and Short-Termism in Activism,” by Mike Burkart and Amil Dasgupta, shows that activist funds too can focus on the short term. In the model, activists add value by preventing wastage by the manager. To signal their type to their own investors, they take a short-term action such as boosting leverage to make a… Read More »Paper Spotlight: Competition for Flow and Short-Termism in Activism

              Recent survey evidence shows that the list of institutional investors paying close attention to environmental issues, with a consequent impact on their investment decisions, is increasing. A central factor that ought to be considered is the role of government regulation, especially the uncertainty surrounding it, and subsequent response of firms to those regulations against the background of a worsening environmental scenario. This is… Read More »Paper Spotlight: Investor Rewards to Climate Responsibility: Stock-Price Responses to the Opposite Shocks of the 2016 and 2020 U.S. Elections