Business Scholarship Podcast

Steven Boivie, professor at Texas A&M University Mays Business School, and Scott Graffin, professor at the University of Georgia Terry College of Business, join the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss their article Corporate Directors' Implicit Theories of the Roles and Duties of Boards. In this interview-based study, Boivie and Graffin, along with co-authors Michael Withers and Kevin Corley, find that contrary to agency-cost theory, corporate directors view their role as supporting, not monitoring, management. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School.

Rebecca Jarvis, ABC News Chief Business, Technology & Economics Correspondent and host of The Dropout podcast, joins the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss what to expect in the criminal trial of former Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School.

Christina Sautter, professor of law at Louisiana State University, and Sergio Gramitto Ricci, lecturer at Monash University, join the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss their article Corporate Governance Gaming: The Power of Retail Investors. Sautter and Grammito Ricci identify the rise of wireless investors, a cohort of Millennial and Gen Z investors who seek community and emphasize environmental, social, and governance factors. This new kind of investor is poised to shake up corporate governance, they explain, as seen in the “meme stock” phenomenon and growing retail-shareholder bases at companies favored by wireless investors. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School.

Eliot Brown, a reporter at the Wall Street Journal, joins the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss his book The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion, which he co-authored with fellow reporter Maureen Farrell. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School. Special thanks to Ann Lipton, associate professor at Tulane Law School, and Anat Alon-Beck, assistant professor of law at Case Western Reserve University, for invaluable feedback.

Christine Abely, faculty fellow at New England Law Boston, joins the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss her article Adjusting Pre- and Post-Judgment Interest Rates for Consumer Debt Collection Actions. In this article Abely explains that fixed statutory rates for pre- and post-judgement interest can result in windfalls for creditors that come at the expense of consumer debtors. Because consumers often cannot hedge against this risk—as non-consumer judgment debtors can—Abely recommends legislative reforms to protect consumers from paying above-market judgment interest rates. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School.

Andrea Fried, associate professor at Linköping University, joins the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss her book Understanding Deviance in a World of Standards. In the book Fried and co-authors explore the rise of standards and standardization across global industries, standardization’s effects on innovation, and the negative and positive aspects of organizational deviation from standards. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School.

Julian Arato, professor of law at Brooklyn Law School, joins the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss his article The Elastic Corporate Form in International Law. In this article, Arato confronts a tendency by arbitral panels in investor-state disputes to reach decisions that are inconsistent with domestic corporate laws. Examples include allowing shareholders to press claims for third-party harms to a corporation, something domestic laws ordinarily do not permit. This practice, Arato explains, could increase the cost of capital and thus undermine investment treaties’ goal of fostering efficient investment. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School.

Amelia Miazad, faculty director of the Business in Society Institute at UC Berkeley, joins the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss her article Prosocial Antitrust. Miazad argues that antitrust agencies should become more accommodating to collaboration between competitors in areas of systemic risk, like climate change and environmental protection. Such collaborations could be especially compelling, Miazad explains, if the negative externalities they mitigate are greater than any reductions in consumer welfare. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School.

Patrick Bolton, professor of business at Columbia University; Mitu Gulati, professor of law at the University of Virginia; and Ugo Panizza, professor of international economics at the Graduate Institute Geneva, join the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss their article Legal Air Cover. In the article, the authors consider the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on emerging-market sovereign debt, the risk of concurrent sovereign-debt crises, and potential interventions for managing that scenario. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School.

Elisabeth de Fontenay, professor of law at Duke University and Eric Talley, professor of law at Columbia University, join the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss Citibank’s mistaken payment of $900M to Revlon lenders, the resulting litigation, and the implications for the future of New York commercial and contract law. De Fontenay is the author of The $900 Million Mistake: In re Citibank August 11, 2020 Wire Transfers (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 16, 2021) and Talley is the organizer of a scholars’ amicus brief in the Second Circuit appeal of the case. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School.