Recent high-profile corporate scandals—such as those involving Enron in the United States, Yukos in Russia, and Livedoor in Japan—demonstrate challenges to legal regulation of business practices in capitalist economies. Setting forth a new analytic framework for understanding these problems, Law and Capitalism examines such contemporary corporate governance crises in six countries, to shed light on the interaction of legal systems and economic change. This provocative book debunks the simplistic view of law’s instrumental function for financial market development and economic growth. Using comparative case studies that address the United States, China, Germany, Japan, Korea, and Russia, Curtis J. Milhaupt and Katharina Pistor argue that a disparate blend of legal and nonlegal mechanisms have supported economic growth around the world. Their groundbreaking findings show that law and markets evolve together in a “rolling relationship,” and legal systems, including those of the most successful economies, therefore differ significantly in their organizational characteristics. Innovative and insightful, Law and Capitalism will change the way lawyers, economists, policy makers, and business leaders think about legal regulation in an increasingly global market for capital and corporate governance.

An essential history of India's economic growth since 1947, including the legal reforms that have shaped the country in the shadow of colonial rule. Economists have long lamented how the inefficiency of India's legal system undermines the country’s economic capacity. How has this come to be? The prevailing explanation is that the postcolonial legal system is understaffed and under-resourced, making adjudication and contract enforcement slow and costly. Taking this as given, Law and the Economy in a Young Democracy examines the contents and historical antecedents of these laws, including how they have stifled economic development. Economists Roy and Swamy argue that legal evolution in independent India has been shaped by three factors: the desire to reduce inequality and poverty; the suspicion that market activity, both domestic and international, can be detrimental to these goals; and the strengthening of Indian democracy over time, giving voice to a growing fraction of society, including the poor. Weaving the story of India's heralded economic transformation with its social and political history, Roy and Swamy show how inadequate legal infrastructure has been a key impediment to the country's economic growth during the last century. A stirring and authoritative history of a nation rife with contradictions, Law and the Economy in a Young Democracy is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand India's current crossroads—and the factors that may keep its dreams unrealized.

Financial crises have become an all too common occurrence over the past twenty years, largely as a result of changes in finance brought about by increasing internationalization and integration. As domestic financial systems and economies have become more interlinked, weaknesses can significantly impact not only individual economies but also markets, financial intermediaries, and economies around the world. This volume addresses the twin objectives of financial development in the context of financial stability and the role of law in supporting both. Financial stability (frequently seen as the avoidance of financial crisis) has become an objective of both the international financial architecture and individual economies and central banks. At the same time, financial development is now seen to play an important role in economic growth. In both financial stability and financial development, law and related institutions have a central role.

This comprehensive volume brings together the major essays in the subject of law and development. The first sections concerns the relationship between legal systems and social, political and economic change in developing countries. The second section seeks to explain issues which concern law and development in the domestic context.

This volume goes beyond regression results to examine the underlying mechanisms through which the law, the judiciary, and the legal profession influence the economy.

"One of the most discussed questions in social science of the last decade is to what extent differences in economic development among countries can be explained by differing law and institutions. According to the 'legal origins'-thesis, the answer is clear: it claims that differences in economic performance are to a large extent dependent on whether a country belongs to the civil law or common law family. Others have severely criticised this thesis. This volume takes stock of the debate and offers an integrated approach that not only takes into account the insights of economics, but also of comparative law and empirics"--Page 4 of cover.

Most law and development books focus on "what went wrong". Eyes on the Prize is an exception: it focuses on "what went right" in Singapore's transformation from squalid colony to successful growth-oriented, capitalist state. It questions the efficacy and nature of the role of law in the forty-year transformation, in the light of traditional and neo-traditional theories of law and development. It has not been the "rule of law" as such that has contributed to Singapore's development. Rather it has been law as the embodiment of "mature policy" of a goal-oriented, politically stable, educated, largely non-corrupt, communitarian and authoritarian state bureaucracy, which was grafted onto the remnants of the previous colonial administrative structures. Dr Carter examines Singapore's economic development in relation to labour law, land law, and intellectual property law, testing these against key aspects of law and development theories. While analyses of the former challenge the law and development convergence theory, that of intellectual property law uncovers the transforming impact of global influences such as the WTO. As such, the book provides a novel and balanced account for the student of law and economic development.