The Economics of Corporate Governing with Swarnodeep Homroy and Elisabeth Kempf

Most S&P 500 CEOs are Republican donors. Yet for the better part of a decade, the statements coming out of corporate America have leaned overwhelmingly Democratic. Is that hypocrisy, ideology, or something more calculated?In this episode, host Matteo Gatti (Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School and author of Corporate Power and the Politics of Change) brings together two economists who have beenstudying exactly this question from different angles. Swarnodeep Homroy (University of Groningen / University of Southampton) finds that CEO activism is largely strategic — a rational response to an asymmetric, polarised consumerlandscape. Elisabeth Kempf (Harvard Business School) finds that partisan corporate speech has, on average, generated negative stockreturns, and traces the phenomenon to a changing investor base rather than a shift in management ideology. Together, they reveal a considerably more complex picture than either the "woke capitalism" critique or its defenders tend to acknowledge.Swarnodeep Homroy is Associate Professor at the University of Groningen and the University of Southampton. His paper with Sebastian Gangopadhyay, "Strategic CEO Activism in Polarized Markets" (Journal of Financial and QuantitativeAnalysis), is a seminal empirical study of CEO activism. He has also co-authored work on corporate responses to January 6th and on partisan sorting in domestic supply chains.Elisabeth Kempf is Associate Professor of Finance at Harvard Business School. Her research spans political economy, corporate governance, and finance. Matteo Gatti is Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School, where he writes on corporate power, governance, and political economy. He is a Research Member of ECGI and the host of this podcast.LinksCorporate Power and the Politics of Change by Matteo Gatti (Cambridge University Press)Strategic CEO Activism in Polarized Markets by Swarnodeep Homroy & Sebastian Gangopadhyay (2020)Partisan Corporate Speech by Elisabeth Kempf & William Cassidy (2025)The Political Polarization of Corporate America by Elisabeth Kempf, Vyacheslav Fos & Margarita Tsoutsoura (2022)The Political Transformation of Corporate America, 2001-2022 by Reilly Steel (2024)Corporate Value(s) by Jill Fisch & Jeff Schwartz (2026)The Business of the Culture War by Aakaash Rao and Shakked Noy (2025)Other EpisodesCorporate Governing and Shareholder Voice with Jill Fisch and Tim Smith- EP.3 in Corporate Power and the Politics of Change with Matteo Gatti Politics in Corporations: Systematic Corruption with Reilly Steel - EP. 8 in Corporate Power and the Politics of Change with Matteo Gatti (forthcoming)