Business Scholarship Podcast

Ramsi Woodcock, assistant professor of law at the University of Kentucky, joins the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss his article The Market as a Learning Algorithm: Consequences for Regulation and Antitrust. In this article, Woodcock questions the Chicago School's reliance on skepticism and the metaphor of evolutionary biology to undermine pre-1970s antitrust enforcement. Rather than the evolutionary metaphor, he explains that machine learning more aptly describes how antitrust and other forms of economic regulation can foster social advancement and guard against social predation. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, a teaching fellow and lecturer in law at Stanford Law School.

Brando Cremona, a PhD candidate at Bocconi University, and Maria Passador, an academic fellow at Bocconi University, join the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss their recent article Shareholder Activism Today: Did Barbarians Storm the Gate?. In this article, Cremona and Passador trace the rise of shareholder activism in a comparative analysis of its practice and effects in the United States and European jurisdictions. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, a teaching fellow and lecturer in law at Stanford Law School.

Sean Griffith, professor of law at Fordham University, and Abraham Cable, professor of law at UC Hastings, join the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss their recent works on representation-and-warranty insurance in mergers and acquisitions. Griffith is the author of Deal Insurance: Representation & Warranty Insurance in Mergers and Acquisitions. Cable is the author of Comment on Griffith’s Deal Insurance: The Continuing Scramble Among Professionals. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, a teaching fellow and lecturer in law at Stanford Law School.

Spencer Williams, associate professor of law at Golden Gate University, joins the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss his article Contracts as Systems. In this article, Williams considers complex-systems theory, which has its origins in fields like engineering, computer science, ecology, and economics, and extends it to contracts. In doing so he adds to a literature challenging reductionist interpretation of contract terms and offers a new account of contractual complexity that turns on interactions between individual contract terms. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, a teaching fellow and lecturer in law at Stanford Law School.

David Hoffman, professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, and Cathy Hwang, professor of law at the University of Virginia, join the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss their essay The Social Cost of Contract. In their essay, Hoffman and Hwang examine when unexpected changes would cause contracts, if performed, to produce intolerable public costs, such as when epidemics and pandemics render contracts too dangerous to perform. Hoffman and Hwang then apply a contract-law anti-canon to predict how courts would enforce such contracts and how parties should renegotiate under the shadow of courts' likely enforcement behavior. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, a teaching fellow and lecturer in law at Stanford Law School.

Afra Afsharipour, professor of law at UC Davis, joins the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss her essay Bias, Identity and M&A. In this essay, Afsharipour considers the non-value maximizing behavioral biases that can influence M&A activity, with a particular focus on senior management and a board's ability to monitor senior management in the deal process. As part of this discussion, Afsharipour reviews recent empirical research on the relationship between management identity and M&A behavior. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, a teaching fellow and lecturer in law at Stanford Law School.

Eldar Maksymov, assistant professor at Arizona State University W.P. Carey School of Business, and Matthew Ege, assistant professor at Texas A&M University Mays Business School, join the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss their paper The Revival of Large Consulting Practices at the Big 4 and Audit Quality. In their paper, Maksymov, Ege, and their co-authors Dain Donelson and Andy Imdieke, use a multi-method approach to assess whether mergers and acquisitions of consulting firms by audit firms have positive or negative effects on the quality of audits conducted by the acquiring firms. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, a teaching fellow and lecturer in law at Stanford Law School.

Aisha Saad, research scholar in law and Bartlett Research Fellow at Yale Law School, joins the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss her recent article The Corporate Waqf in Law and Practice. In this article, Saad discusses the share waqf as a contemporary form of the waqf, a trust-like entity in Islamic law used for carrying out charitable purposes. Unlike waqfs that hold real estate or cash, share wafs hold significant, even controlling, stakes in firms. In offering case studies of corporate waqfs in Turkey, India, and Malaysia, Saad draws comparisons to northern European foundations. Together, these two institutions challenge agency-cost theory and U.S. concepts of corporate governance. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, a teaching fellow and lecturer in law at Stanford Law School.

Aditi Bagchi, professor of law at Fordham University, joins the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss her recent essay Risk Averse Contract Interpretation. In this essay, Bagchi argues that boilerplate does not require its own doctrine of contract interpretation, but rather it should incorporate external references in an approach that defies both interpretive contextualism and formalism. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, a teaching fellow and lecturer in law at Stanford Law School.

Blair Bullock, visiting assistant professor of law at Tulane University, joins the Business Scholarship Podcast to discuss her forthcoming article Uncovering Harassment Retaliation. In this article, Bullock identifies gaps in employment law's protection of workers who report workplace harassment. Bullock then provides novel empirical results showing that reporting harassment by a supervisor increases the probability that a worker also reports retaliation. She closes the article with a call to close gaps in retaliation coverage that could enable employers to take action against those who report harassment. This episode is hosted by Andrew Jennings, a teaching fellow and lecturer in law at Stanford Law School.