Introduction |
The financial crisis has raised fundamental questions about corporate governance. Much of the focus has been on the governance of financial institutions. But wider issues are also raised. As a consequence, while the European Commission's (EC) first Green Paper in June 2010 was on the Corporate Governance of Financial Institutions, it subsequently produced in April 2011 a Green Paper on Corporate Governance of all European corporations.
In addition to the policy response, the financial crisis has also raised questions about the agenda for corporate governance research. Firstly there is a set of issues relating to the financial crisis itself - why it happened? what was the contribution of poor corporate governance to it? and what it reveals is different about the corporate governance of financial institutions from other organisations? Second, it raises questions about whether the past research agenda has addressed the right topics. For example, the conflicts between different classes of investors as well as between principals and agents have risen to the fore since the crisis as has the interaction between regulation and corporate governance.
The purpose of the meeting in Brussels is to identify what the research agenda on corporate governance going forward should be both from the point of view of what is of most relevance to policymakers, in particular the EU, and what is intellectually of particular significance to academics working in the field.
The two EC Green Papers address a common set of issues. These can be classified under three headings - shareholders, boards of directors, and gatekeepers (regulators, auditors, credit rating agencies, codes etc). The meeting will be divided into three sessions, which mirror the issues identified in the Green Papers, two in the morning and one in the afternoon. The first session will be on shareholders and other investors, the second on boards and directors, and the third on gatekeepers. It will take the two European Green Papers as starting points for the discussion and consider how the ECGI research agenda might help to address the questions raised by the Commission in its two Green Papers. There will be short introductions that will identify a few topics for debate and then discussion will be opened to all participants. Each of the sessions will end with a consideration of what specific research issues should be addressed in the future and what data and other resources researchers need to be able to address these questions.
Click Background Papers in the menu to download the two European Commission Corporate Governance Green Papers. |
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