Sovereign Wealth Funds and Corporate Governance: A Minimalist Response to the New Mercantilism‪.‬

INTRODUCTION Keynes taught years ago that international cash flows are always political. (1) Western response to the enormous increase in the number and the assets of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), and other government-directed investment vehicles that often get lumped together under the SWF label, proves Keynes right. To their most severe critics, SWFs are a threat to the sovereignty of the nations in whose corporations they invest. The heat of the metaphors matches the volume of the complaints. The nations whose corporations are targets of investments are said to be threatened with becoming "sharecropper" states if ownership of industry moves to foreign-government absentee holders. (2) More tempered critics fear that SWFs will make decisions for political, not economic reasons. (3) Calls for both domestic and international regulation of sovereign wealth funds' investments are now a daily occurrence. (4) In this Article we frame a minimalist response to concerns over SWFs.