A single, public document can prompt thousands of companies to improve their governance practices. In this episode of Risk and Return, we explore a subtle but powerful tool used by some of the world’s largest investors: expectation documents. Rather than engaging company by company, global investors such as sovereign wealth funds and index giants publish portfolio-wide statements that outline the standards they expect from all the firms they own.

In the second episode of Risk and Return, Vicente J. Bermejo, professor in the Master in Finance at Esade and member of the Group for Research in Economics, Finance and Accounting (GREF) discusses his recent study —which you can read about here— analyzing the impact of a major governance expectations release by Norway’s sovereign wealth fund in 2012.

Hosted by Professor Omar Rachedi, Risk and Return features conversations with leading scholars and practitioners to strip away jargon and explore how markets, businesses, and policies shape our world.