The Harvard Magazine’s new issue features Insider Luck, a piece I wrote on how stock-option grants were gamed and what to do about it.  In addition to providing an informal and accessible summary of the findings of Lucky Directors and Lucky CEOs, the two studies I co-authored with Yaniv Grinstein and Urs Peyer on the opportunistic timing of CEOs’ and independent directors’ grants, the piece considers the policy implications that past backdating practice have for future governance policies.  Even though significant backdating may belong to the past, its underlying causes are problems with which the corporate governance system must continue to wrestle, and the piece discusses how this should be done.