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To examine what to expect from Chair Gary Gensler’s SEC and the new Biden presidential administration following Chair Gensler’s U.S. Senate confirmation on April 14, 2021.

Reviews past SEC Chair Jay Clayton’s legacy and Chair Gensler’s prior regulatory actions and focus, and outlines Chair Gensler’s expected initiatives, including a heightened focus on cryptocurrency regulation, investigation of COVID-19-related fraud, and ESG and climate change disclosure.

This change will bring forth a Democratic majority at the SEC which, in turn, suggests that the Commission will change its current emphasis on capital formation to focus more on investor protection, rules required by the Dodd-Frank Act, inspections, examinations, and enforcement

Firms should examine their compliance programs in anticipation of heightened advocacy for investor protection; an increased focus on cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, as well as ESG disclosures with an emphasis on climate change; and an increase in inspections and examinations which will drive more enforcement in the fund industry, as well as increases in initiatives regarding transparency, additional disclosures, and investor protection. Organizations will also benefit by reexamining their existing compliance programs with the advice of counsel as a mechanism to mitigate the risk of potential securities laws violations.

Practical guidance from experienced securities enforcement and litigation lawyers.

For someone seeking to place his assets out of the reach of creditors, Offshore Asset Protection Trusts (OAPTs) offer the potential settlor secrecy, control, choice of law and jurisdiction, and favourable taxation. While many legitimate entities make use of the benefits of OAPTs, criminal entities have also seized upon them as a means of furthering their crimes.

How can large international financial firms go green in authentic ways? What enhances ‘Net Zero action’? Changes in global banks, fund managers, and insurance firms are at the heart of green finance. External change pressures – combined with problematic firm predispositions – exacerbate barriers to change and promote scepticism about authentic Net Zero change. Field research reveals main elements, connections, and interactions of this question by considering financial firms as complex socio-technical systems (Mitleton-Kelly, 2003). An interdisciplinary/holistic narrative approach (De Bakker et al., 2019) is adopted to design a conceptual framework that can support a green ‘behavioural theory of the financial firm’ (green BTFF). The BTFF presents an international version (Peng, 2001) of the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm (Barney, 1991; Hart, 1995; Teece et al., 1997).

The approach of this chapter is aimed at closing knowledge gaps and realign values in financial markets and society. By raising awareness about organised hypocrisy and facades (Brunsson, 1993; Cho et al., 2015; Schoeneborn et al., 2020) in financial firms the chapter aims at overcoming the gap between ‘talking’ and ‘walking’ in the financial sector. The chapter defines testable firm-level hypotheses for ‘Green Finance’ (Poterba, 2021) as well as – by implication – tests for ‘greenwashing’.

The purpose of this paper is to examine two prominent perspectives on business group functioning, institutional void (IV) and entrenchment/exploitation (EE), that make different predictions about the effect of business group (BG) on the economy. The authors examine the effects of BG prevalence in an economy and its effect on macroeconomic outcomes including foreign direct inward and outward investment, innovation and development of the financial sector.

The authors build a unique database by extracting estimates of BG prevalence for multiple countries between 1978 and 2012 from the existing literature and use this to test conflicting predictions derived from the IV and EE perspectives, respectively.

The authors find no consistent evidence that BG prevalence diminishes over time with economic development as IVs diminish, which is predicted by the IV perspective. Instead, the long-term persistence of BGs in many countries appears to be more consistent with the EE perspective. However, this study also finds no support for the perspective that high levels of BG prevalence are negatively associated with country-level indicators and determinants of economic development and competitiveness, as suggested by that perspective.

The authors conclude that there is no robust support for either the IV or the EE perspective and highlight the need for more contextualized theorizing about the evolution of BGs.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

Food insecurity in the Latin American region has become a complex problem that significantly impacts people's physical and mental well-being. The factors causing food insecurity are varied, ranging from social, political, and economic causes. Ensuring access to food is not a task with limited responsibilities; on the contrary, both public and private institutions must contribute to creating sustainable and innovative solutions. In general, it is necessary to ensure that the food system flows correctly, ensuring the availability of balanced and nutritious food for the diet of the inhabitants of a given nation. Alternative solutions apart from the government's help include sustainable cultivation, finger millet, and close cooperation with the farmers from the agriculture sector. The present research aims to consolidate theoretical information on the Latin American situation and seek the leading solutions of the parties involved.

This study aims to advance an international political economy (IPE) perspective that geo-political events can have long-lasting imprint effects on countries and their firms. The study also aims to explore the idea that shared political history and geography combine to create specific structural conditions that shape the international competitiveness of all firms in a region. In particular, the authors consider whether the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which asserted American influence in the Western Hemisphere, contributed to the creation of institutional structures across Latin America (LA) affecting the strategies of all firms to this day. The authors also illustrate the IPE perspective using the example of the contemporary international competitiveness of LA business groups.

The authors illustrate the IPE perspective using the example of the contemporary international competitiveness of LA business groups. The exploratory framework of this study leads to a proposition about the export performance of Latin American business group affiliates. The authors use firm-level performance data for 32,000 firms across emerging economies to explore the proposition empirically while controlling for alternative explanations. To do this, the authors draw on the World Bank Economic Surveys.

The authors derive a proposition that argues the Monroe Doctrine has had a long-run imprint effect on economic policymaking in LA, resulting in a common, persistent and negative impact on the international competitiveness of firms. The authors find strong and consistent evidence that in terms of export performance, all Latin American firms export less and group affiliates do not outperform independent firms, This finding contrasts with the results for all the other emerging market regions around the world.

The main contribution of this study has been to suggest the potential importance of shared regional geopolitical history and geography in explaining firm-level outcomes. However, this study is preliminary and introductory, although the authors seek to control for alternative country-specific explanations of the results. The analysis considers the effects of one particular IPE phenomenon, the Monroe Doctrine, in one particular location: LA. Future work should seek to contrast LA with other geopolitical security and alternative IPE structures. They might also address the time dimension from a historical perspective: is imprinting in LA driven by the length of the Monroe Doctrine arrangements?

The most important managerial learning point concerns the relevance of geography and political economy factors for multinational enterprises strategy formation. There is widespread understanding that context is an important determinant of subsidiaries’ performance, and that strategies need to be constructed to take account of country-specific characteristics, most importantly, in emerging economies and institutional arrangements. This paper proposes that managers also need to take account of IPE structures, including security arrangements, and to consider the resulting regional as well as national context.

The analysis suggests that not only the performance of firms, including emblematic firms, but also the socially beneficial spillovers that might be generated from them, are contingent on the regional as well as national characteristics. Thus, business groups in most emerging economies are found to yield better performance and to provide higher levels of social impact, including concerning ESG goals. However, the findings of this study suggest that the former is not true for LA, which, the authors argue, is a consequence of imprinting as a result of the Monroe Doctrine. Further work is needed to establish whether the latter effect is also not true, but if that is the case, then regionally specific policies may be required to address the resulting corporate social shortfalls.

The core idea is that geo-political events can have long-lasting imprint effects on countries and their firms: that shared political history and geography create specific structural conditions that shape the international competitiveness of all firms in a region. The authors explore this concept with reference to the Monroe Doctrine, asking whether its assertion of US influence across the Americas contributed to the creation of institutional structures across LA affecting the strategies of all firms to this day.

In the last decades, many of the most talented and promising young graduates in the developed economies have joined the financial industry. Simultaneously, ill-designed incentives’ schemes have favored the development of a culture in which excessive greed, free-riders’ behavior, unreasonable appetite for risk, and short-term decision making have endangered the economy and, potentially, have laid the foundations for financial, economic, social, and environmental crises.

In this chapter, we review current challenges in the financial industry from the lens of human and social capital. We examine some of the factors that allowed unethical behavior and a short-term financial focus in the financial sector, examining how compensation and an extremely competitive culture became key elements that favored greedy and manipulative behavior and ultimately generated socially harmful human and social capital in the financial sector. Finally, we discuss the emergence of a number of game-changers (namely, Brexit, FinTech, the growing relevance of ethical standards, and the increasing participation of women and millennials in the industry) that might represent potential promotors of change and help restructure and reshape the financial industry.