Congress, Corporate Boards, and Oversight: A Public Law/Private Law Comparison

Abstract

This article examines emerging ideas involving corporate governance and fiduciary duties and applies them to civic governance. Recent articles in corporate governance have applied behavioral economic research to suggest the emergence of an approach to corporate governance that seeks not so much to delineate where responsibility, and thereby legal liability, exists, but instead to develop mechanisms that make it easier for parties with disparate interests to trust one another. Such an approach would be a useful antidote to the current problems of civil government as well.

Keywords: corporate governance, fiduciary trust, behavioral economics, history