Corporate governance as religion

Abstract

This paper, examining five different corporate governance topics, considers whether certain corporate governance reforms—perhaps because of the passion with which their advocates advance them—have increasingly become articles of faith rather than matters of intellectual analysis and empirical evaluation. The paper proceeds on the premise that good corporate governance is very important, but that it is not always easy to determine whether any particular proposed reform actually constitutes good or bad corporate governance. It concludes that sound corporate governance reforms can only be forged on the anvil of close and rigorous examination—wherever that examination might lead.