In his January 2, 2015 Wall Street Journal essay, columnist Holman Jenkins makes a compelling case for the principle of shareholder value maximization by noting that owners seeking to maximize the value of their businesses end up doing a pretty decent job of satisfying customer and employees along the way. Think of this essay as a 2015 sequel to Milton Friedman’s famous New York Times Magazine essay (published September 13, 1970) entitled “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits” (see http://bit.ly/Social_Responsibility_of_Business for Friedman’s essay; Thomas Coleman provides important context in his recent (2013) essay about Friedman entitled “Corporate Social Responsibility: Friedman’s View @ http://bfi.uchicago.edu/feature-story/corporate-social-responsibilty-friedmans-view)…
Are Shareholders Obsolete?
Published by Jim Garven
My name is Jim Garven. I currently hold appointments at Baylor University as the Frank S. Groner Memorial Chair of Finance and Professor of Finance & Insurance. I also currently serve as an associate editor for Geneva Risk and Insurance Review. At Baylor, I teach courses in managerial economics, risk management, and financial engineering, and my research interests are in corporate risk management, insurance economics, and option pricing theory and applications. Please email your comments about this weblog to James_Garven@baylor.edu. View all posts by Jim Garven