Proxy Advisory Firms: The Economics of Selling Information to Voters

54 Pages Posted: 3 Apr 2016 Last revised: 1 Oct 2019

See all articles by Andrey Malenko

Andrey Malenko

Boston College; European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

Nadya Malenko

Boston College, Carroll School of Management; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Finance Theory Group (FTG); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

Date Written: October 1, 2019

Abstract

We analyze how proxy advisors, which sell voting recommendations to shareholders, affect corporate decision-making. If the quality of the advisor's information is low, there is overreliance on its recommendations and insufficient private information production. In contrast, if the advisor's information is precise, it may be underused because the advisor rations its recommendations to maximize profits. Overall, the advisor's presence leads to more informative voting only if its information is sufficiently precise. We evaluate several proposals on regulating proxy advisors and show that some suggested policies, such as reducing proxy advisors' market power or decreasing litigation pressure, can have negative effects.

Keywords: Proxy advisors, sale of information, information acquisition, shareholder voting, strategic voting, information aggregation

JEL Classification: D42, D71, D72, D82, G34, G38, L12

Suggested Citation

Malenko, Andrey and Malenko, Nadya, Proxy Advisory Firms: The Economics of Selling Information to Voters (October 1, 2019). Journal of Finance, Vol 74, No. 5, October 2019 , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2757597 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2757597

Andrey Malenko

Boston College

140 Commonwealth Avenue
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
United States

European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) ( email )

c/o the Royal Academies of Belgium
Rue Ducale 1 Hertogsstraat
1000 Brussels
Belgium

HOME PAGE: http://www.amalenko.com

Nadya Malenko (Contact Author)

Boston College, Carroll School of Management ( email )

140 Commonwealth Avenue
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Finance Theory Group (FTG) ( email )

United States

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) ( email )

London
United Kingdom

European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) ( email )

c/o the Royal Academies of Belgium
Rue Ducale 1 Hertogsstraat
1000 Brussels
Belgium

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
918
Abstract Views
4,811
Rank
47,430
PlumX Metrics