Evidence of learning in the stock market

This is a bit of an old article, but the idea of stock market learning came up in class on Wednesday and ethics all of last week, so I will mention market learning in the context of governance.

Short version: it used to be that you could get a higher return by buying firms with good governance (Gompers, Ishii, and Metrick, 2003)  (as measured by the Gompers-Ishii index) and shorting poorly

Alibaba's Governance Leaves Investors at a Disadvantage - NYTimes.com

Alibaba's Governance Leaves Investors at a Disadvantage - NYTimes.com:



 "In Alibaba, control is going to be locked forever in the hands of a group of insiders known as the Alibaba Partnership. These are all managers in the Alibaba Group or related companies. The Partnership will have the exclusive right to nominate candidates for a majority of the board seats. Furthermore, if the Partnership

Don't Make Poison Pills More Deadly - NYTimes.com

Don't Make Poison Pills More Deadly - NYTimes.com:

"Poison pills were developed in the 1980s to enable insiders to block a hostile acquisition. Over time, however — and without sufficient attention by investors and public officials — companies have started to use poison pills to prevent acquisitions of stakes that fall substantially short of a controlling block.

Indeed, among the 637 companies