ARTICLES
ROBERT ECCLES: “ESG IS FULLY POLITICIZED IN THE US”
ROBERT ECCLES: “ESG IS FULLY
POLITICIZED IN THE US”
Are companies and investors just trying to make more money under the guise of ESG? Or does the call for sustainable business and investment threaten returns and thus a healthy...
What Does The United States Have In Common With Haiti, Myanmar, South Sudan, And Yemen?
What Does The United States Have In Common
With Haiti, Myanmar, South Sudan, And Yemen?
Let’s make this a multiple choice question. The country has English at its official language. The country has won at least one Gold Medal in the Summer Olympics. The country has...
Loving Your Leftovers: Unilever’s Christina Bauer-Plank On The Purpose Of The Hellmann’s Brand
Loving Your Leftovers: Unilever’s Christina Bauer-Plank
On The Purpose Of The Hellmann’s Brand
Previously I have written about some investor controversy concerning Unilever’s commitment to purpose. There are those investors who simply assert that purpose hurts profits....
Activist Investing: Insights From Patricia Olasker, A Lawyer Who Represents Both Sides
Activist Investing: Insights From Patricia Olasker,
A Lawyer Who Represents Both Sides
There are very few women who represent activist investors. There are very few lawyers of either gender who represent both them and companies. This puts Patricia Olasker of Davies...
A Linguistic Analysis Of The Texas Section 809 Boycott Provision
A Linguistic Analysis Of The
Texas Section 809 Boycott Provision
Texas Comptroller Chuck Hegar, running for re-election for a third term, has made quite a name for himself as a Red state financial officer who is leading the boycott of...
The Politics of Values-Based Investing
The Politics of
Values-Based Investing
Senate Republicans are introducing legislation directing retirement plan sponsors to select investments solely based on monetary factors, an extension of the position adopted by...
Turning Down the Heat on the ESG Debate: Separating Material Risk Disclosures from Salient Political Issues
Turning Down the Heat on the ESG Debate: Separating Material Risk
Disclosures from Salient Political Issues
With political battle lines drawn over environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosures, it is fair to ask whether the sustainability movement is itself sustainable. As a...
Drilling Into DRLL’s Top 10 Holdings: A Woke Analysis
Drilling Into DRLL's Top 10 Holdings:
A Woke Analysis
On August 10, 2022, Strive Asset Management launched “Strive U.S. Energy ETF” (DRLL). Just two weeks later on August 24 it already an impressive $268.45 million in assets under...
Three Hypotheses About Republican Senior Executives And The Worrisome Problem Of Wokeness
Three Hypotheses About Republican Senior Executives
And The Worrisome Problem Of Wokeness
Although Mr. Ramaswamy and his devoted followers like to rail against “the elite,” I must give at least some credit to his Harvard College and Yale Law School degrees for...
Looking At Climate Change Through The Eyes Of ExxonMobil
Looking At Climate Change Through
The Eyes Of ExxonMobil
In my previous post, I discussed the Republican Steering Committee (RSC) Memorandum “The War on American Energy: Ground Zero.” In the first part I pointed out that I shared their...
Some Reflections On An RSC Memo, ExxonMobil, And Tesla
Some Reflections On An RSC Memo,
ExxonMobil, And Tesla
On July 27, 2022, The Republican Study Committee published a Memorandum titled “The War on American Energy: Ground Zero” expressing its concern about Environmental, Social, and...
Putting Financial Reporting Standards into Practical Perspective
Putting Financial Reporting Standards
Into Practical Perspective
In our previous post, The Complex, Contentious, and Changing Nature of Financial Reporting Standards, we show that financial reporting standards, despite what some might think,...
Does ESG Negative Screening Work?
Does ESG
Negative Screening Work?
We revisit the firm value and pricing implications of the negative screening of sin stocks. Unlike prior work, we find that institutional ownership and valuations related to sin...
Addressing System-Level Risks For Maximizing Long-Term Financial Returns
Addressing System-Level Risks In Order To Maximize
Long-Term Financial Returns
I have written about the polarization around ESG and how some Republicans are even weaponizing the concept, to the detriment of their own voters. Most recently I have taken a...
The Complex, Contentious, and Changing Nature of Financial Reporting Standards
The Complex, Contentious, and Changing Nature
of Financial Reporting Standards
In The Long and Winding Road to Financial Reporting Standards we reviewed the history of how accounting standards came to exist in the U.S. as Generally Accepted Accounting...
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