“Thin political markets” are the processes through which some of the most complex and critical institutions of our capitalist system are determined—e.g., our accounting-standards infrastructure; rules for bank-capital adequacy; actuarial standards; and auditing practice. In thin political markets, corporate special interests are largely unopposed because of both their tacit knowledge and the general public’s low awareness of the issues. This enables the special interests to structure the “rules of the game” in self-serving ways. On one level, this behavior embodies the capitalist spirit articulated by Milton Friedman: “The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.” But the ethics of profit-seeking behavior are premised on the logic of competition and, as this session will demonstrate, this logic breaks down in thin political markets. The result is a structural flaw in the determination of critical institutions of the capitalist system, which, if ignored, can undermine the legitimacy of the system. Professor Ramanna will close with some ideas on how to fix the problem.

Karthik Ramanna is an associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. He will discuss these ideas and many others, and will share some ideas on how to fix these problems. His latest book is Political Standards: Corporate Interest, Ideology, and Leadership in the Shaping of Accounting Rules for the Market Economy. 

Lawrence H. Summers on Ramanna's Political Standards:
“By tracing political influences on accounting, this important book shows that, if war is too important to leave to generals, accounting is too important to leave to accountants.”