Afternoon Must-Read: Lawrence Summers: Companies on Trial

Lawrence Summers:
Companies on Trial: “Lord Chancellor Edward Thurlow…

corporations have ‘no soul to be damned, no body to kick’…. Garrett’s data and his narrative provide a textured understanding of these trade-offs and many others in dealing with corporate crime…. The current trend towards large fines as the response to corporate wrongdoing seems to promote a somewhat unattractive combination of individual incentives. Managers do not find it personally costly to part with even billions of dollars of their shareholders’ money, especially when fines represent only a small fraction of total market value. Paying with shareholders’ money as the price of protecting themselves is a very attractive trade-off. Enforcement authorities like to either collect large fines or be seen as delivering compensation for those who have been victimised by corporate wrongdoing. So they are all too happy to go along. In the process, punishment of individuals who do wrong or who fail in their managerial duty to monitor the behaviour of their subordinates is short-changed. And deterrence is undermined. There is a broader cultural phenomenon here as well. Relative to other countries such as the UK or Japan, the principle that leaders should resign to take responsibility for failure on their watch even when they did not directly do wrong is less established in the US. This is probably an area where we have something to learn…