A Dynamic Model of Corporate Campaigns

Abstract

This chapter introduces a finite-horizon (three-period) model of corporate campaigns in which an activist targets a single firm. The activist cares solely about the social benefits generated by the private regulation the firm is capable of undertaking. A firm can undertake costly effort in each period to improve its reputation in the subsequent period. The activist could undertake costly effort to impair the firm's reputation. As compared to a setting in which the firm faced no activist, the firm chooses a higher level of private regulation in the first period and, in expectation, a higher level of private regulation in the second period as well. The authors interpret this increase as self-insurance against reputational harm. The activist has a strategic effect on the firm in the second period: if the campaign impairs the firm's reputation, the firm will undertake more private regulation than it would have had its reputation remained the same or even improved.