In 2009, Netflix concluded a three-year open competition by awarding $1 million to a team of researchers that had created the best algorithm to predict user ratings for movies. 十年后，罗伯特. 麦凯法学教授 瑞安Bubb 和教授 埃米利亚诺·桌游 LLM ’10 set out to achieve a clearer understanding of institutional investors’ voting behavior and corporate governance preferences, 他们决定向Netflix学习.
The training data set that Netflix provided to participants in its competition contained more than 100 million ratings. 巴布和卡坦岛, 谁使用了2010年至2015年的共同基金投票信息, 他们发现自己正在处理一个包含2800多万张选票的数据集, 因此，他们采用了类似的机器学习技术来处理大量的数据. 他们的研究结果发表在 《one体育》 2022年6月 财务研究检讨.
Bubb和Catan在没有具体假设的情况下完成了这项任务, 让数据建立故事. 使用降维技术和聚类分析, the two identified three main types of mutual funds in terms of corporate governance philosophies expressed through voting. 三人共同基金“派对”的形象出现了,布布和卡坦称其为传统执政党, 股东改革党, 以及股东抗议党. 比如一个政党的成员, 共同基金政党的成员在股东选举中倾向于集体投票.
The Traditional Governance Party votes with company management at higher rates than the other two parties, particularly when an issue is traditionally understood as being within the jurisdiction of a board rather than of shareholders. 另一方面, this party is likeliest to oppose management on proposals involving fundamental shareholder rights (typically, 改变基本公司管治规则的措施), 经常站在股东一边. 在代理权竞争中，该党也经常与管理层意见相左.
与此形成鲜明对比的是, 股东改革党 votes against management and requests specific corporate governance reforms at much higher rates than its two counterparts. The party supports shareholder intervention in matters traditionally considered within the board’s lane, 包括企业社会责任(CSR)和高管薪酬.
在一些提案类别中, the Shareholder Protest Party opposes management at a rate between the anti-management voting rates of other parties. But with uncontested director election proposals and non-binding say-on-pay proposals (allowing shareholders to vote on executive compensation), 这两项加起来超过抽样选票的四分之三, the party defies management considerably more often than the other two parties do—essentially engaging in “protest” votes that are largely symbolic.
巴布和卡坦岛 suggest that their novel concept of a three-party mutual fund voting structure can shed new light on corporate governance issues. 例如, recent debate on corporate governance has focused on the shift from active to passive fund management among institutional investors and whether that trend is leading to decreased monitoring of corporate management.
巴布和卡坦断言，三方视角有助于做出更准确的预测. 传统治理党包括“三巨头”被动管理基金——贝莱德, 先锋, 就管理的总资产而言，道富银行是最大的银行. 随着巴布和卡坦岛的建立, these passive managers oppose management in votes concerning fundamental shareholder rights even as they defer to management on other matters, 让他们远远超过橡皮图章.
另一个常见的担忧是，代理顾问对公司治理的影响力越来越大. But 巴布和卡坦岛 argue that the growth of the Big Three passively managed funds is likely to weaken the influence of proxy advisors, 这些基金往往不听从谁的建议. 他们还发现，两家最大的代理顾问公司的建议, ISS和Glass Lewis, correspond to the distinct voting behaviors of 股东改革党 以及股东抗议党, respectively—even though ISS和Glass Lewis’s proxy voting guidelines articulate similar corporate governance philosophies. The co-authors find that proxy advisors’ recommendations help define differences in voting behavior among the three parties—while at the same time the advisors’ influence on votes overall appears to be weaker than generally believed.
Bubb explains that their findings create a more complex picture than the more black-and-white takes he and Catan have seen in other analyses of institutional investor voting. “one体育都是经济学家，”Bubb说. “one体育经常简化……. 这种简化精神实际上可以成为经济学方法论的一大优势.
“另一方面,Bubb补充道, “有时，简化方法会忽略重要的区别.” Catan calls legal scholars “more attuned to some of the more fine-grained dimensions over which votes might differ,并表示，Bubb和他“能够将这些细微差别运用到数据分析中。.”
美国证券交易委员会(SEC)已经注意到了Bubb和Catan的工作. 2018年12月，Pierrepont家庭法律教授 小罗伯特·杰克逊.时任美国证券交易委员会(SEC)委员的他在一场会议上发表了讲话 在one体育举行的联邦贸易委员会听证会 他引用了巴布和卡坦的工作论文.
“大型机构, 尤其是指数投资者, wield unprecedented power in corporate elections—power that comes from the savings of millions of American families,杰克逊说. “What can the SEC do to make sure that ordinary investors understand how institutions are wielding their influence? one体育应该从揭示机构如何为美国人的钱投票开始.”
Jackson went on to describe the newly identified “party structure” of mutual fund voting as a potential means of elucidating voting for retail investors. “无论是泡沫-卡坦岛方案, 或者一种竞争方法, 证明机构投资者如何投票的最佳方式是不是超出了我的证词范围, [but] we at the SEC should be taking steps to make sure that American investors understand how their retirement savings are being used in corporate elections,杰克逊说.
第二年七月, the paper was cited multiple times in the SEC’s rulemaking petition for real-time disclosure of proxy votes. 2022年11月, 该委员会通过了一些规则，使投资基金的代理投票数据更加方便用户使用. Those actions should make it easier to realize 巴布和卡坦岛’s expressed desire at the end of their article: “We hope the introduction of our measures of mutual fund corporate governance preferences to the literature will enable other researchers to test quantitatively a range of theories and hypotheses about corporate governance.”
2023年1月25日发布