Mark J. Roe on stock buybacks, corporate-tax reform, stakeholder capitalism, and more

Mark J. Roe refutes the prevailing narrative that stock-market short-termism is killing R&D, proposes an effective corporate-tax reform, and more. The PS Say More Newsletter | [View this message in a web browser]( [PS Say More]( This week in Say More, PS talks with Mark J. Roe, a professor at Harvard Law School and the author of [Missing the Target: Why Stock-Market Short-Termism Is Not the Problem](. To read the full interview – in which Roe refutes the prevailing narrative that stock-market short-termism is killing R&D, describes a corporate-tax reform that would provide a real boost to the US economy, explains why pressure on corporations to advance the public good is misguided, and more – [click here](. Mark J. Roe Says More... Syndicate: In your new book, [Missing the Target: Why Stock-Market Short-Termism Is Not the Problem]( – and in a [number]( of PS [commentaries]( – you criticize the conventional wisdom that stock-market short-termism is a major contributing factor to some of our biggest long-term challenges. This view is not only wrong, you [argue]( it leads to ineffective, even counter-productive solutions. For example, you say that forcing companies to pay a price for their emissions would do a lot more good in fighting climate change than anything related to time horizons. Are there similarly straightforward interventions that would help overcome other problems often blamed on short-termism? Mark J. Roe: Yes, there are. First, though, we should make sure that we see clearly why efforts to reverse climate change by tackling stock-market short-termism are misguided. As I [noted]( in my June piece for PS, when we drive our cars to work – rather than, say, walking, biking, or taking public transportation – we are not deferring the personal costs of those emissions. Rather, we know that we will not ultimately pay much at all for our own emissions. Our contribution to global warming is thus not arising from a time-horizon problem. The same goes for... [Continue reading]( [Register now for Forsaken Futures, streaming live on September 14 at 3:00 PM CEST]( By the Way... PS: Last year, you [showed]( how the pursuit of a purpose beyond profit is more likely against a backdrop of weaker competition. What does this mean for the credibility of stakeholder capitalism as a means of getting corporations to advance public goods? Is regulation still the answer? MJR: Not just any regulation – good, cost-effective regulation. But yes, my goal was to show that companies with market power – companies that did not face intense competition – had more leeway to accommodate pressures to pursue a public “purpose.” Companies in intensely competitive markets cannot... [Continue reading]( [From the Say More Archive: An Interview with Chris Patten]( [An Interview with Chris Patten]( Last year, [Chris Patten]( proposed a Taiwan policy for the West, warned Europe not to succumb to China’s economic temptations, argued that democracy would, sooner or later, prevail in Hong Kong, and more. Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong and a former EU commissioner for external affairs, is Chancellor of the University of Oxford and the author of [The Hong Kong Diaries](. [Read now]( [Click Here to Learn More about PS Subscriptions]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [LinkedIn]( Project Syndicate publishes and provides, on a not-for-profit basis, original commentary by the world's leading thinkers to more than 500 media outlets in over 150 countries. Receipt of this newsletter does not guarantee rights to re-publish any of its content. This newsletter is a service of [Project Syndicate](. [Change your newsletter preferences](. Follow us on [Facebook]( [Twitter]( and [YouTube](. © Project Syndicate, all rights reserved. [Unsubscribe from all newsletters](.