Arnoud Boot

Arnoud Boot is professor of Corporate Finance and Financial Markets at the University of Amsterdam, co-director of the Amsterdam Center for Law & Economics (WRR) and Chairman of the bank council of the Dutch Central Bank (DNB). He also is chairman of the European Finance Association (EFA) and directs the Amsterdam Center for Corporate Finance (ACCF), a think tank that seeks to stimulate the dialogue between academics and practitioners.
In his work Arnoud Boot focuses on the broad issue of ‘financialization of society’. In a narrow sense, how should we look at and regulate the financial sector? In a broader sense, how does the increasing emphasis on financial measures (e.g. shareholder value, price data from financial markets, often financial performance measures) affect decision making in general. Does it lead to more myopic and/or opportunistic decision making? His book on footloose corporations (‘De ontwortelde onderneming’; 2010) is an example, as is his 2014 JMCB paper ‘Financial sector in flux’. Market forces seem all too often to be at the root of financial instability. How can these be contained without giving up on their potential valuable disciplining role? Similar destabilizing forces seem to play an important role in the increased orientation of corporations on transactions where a short term orientation and lack of commitment may destroy value, and work potentially orthogonal to value creation in the longer run. In his recent advisory report to the Dutch government (WRR 2016), he applies the notion of financial dominance to Dutch society, and formulates recommendations for a stronger focus on the real economy.
In his public policy work and as an independent voice in the public debate, he focuses on these destabilizing forces but also on fundamental shifts in the world economy that are linked to the information technology revolution and current geo-political shifts. Bringing economics to policy, and from an understanding of societal developments trying to shape policy, he sees as a moral obligation in these turbulent times. Arnoud Boot’s academic contributions have appeared in many leading journals including the American Economic Review and the Journal of Finance.