In the last few years law and finance scholars have 'discovered' the usefulness of comparative law. Their studies look at the quantifiable effect that legal rules and their enforcement have on financial development in different countries. Moreover, they link their results with the long- standing...

In the wake of the financial crisis, shareholders are increasingly relied upon to monitor directors. But while much has been written about directors' flawed judgments, remarkably little is known about shareholders' ability to make accurate judgments. What determines whether shareholders make the...

This paper analyses the emerging international supervisory regime for banking institutions that operate on a transnational basis. It focuses on the basle framework as an institutional regime of norms and principles that govern international financial relations amongst the g10 countries. This...

The process of legalization and the role of international soft law in developing international banking supervisory standards are extremely important for assessing the feasibility of establishing effective international rules for banking supervision. This paper analyses the concept of...

This paper examines the extent to which contemporary business-led approaches designed to maximize female human capital are effective in reducing the gendered pay gap in the British labour market. In particular it asks whether the approach outlined by the latest Cabinet Office Review on women's...

Following the 1900 congress in Paris, the beginning of the 20th century saw comparative law emerge as a significant discipline. This paper suggests that the early 21st century is seeing the decline, or maybe even the 'end', of comparative law. In contrast to other claims which see the 21st...

From the mid-1820s, banks became the first business sector in Great Britain and Ireland to be granted the right to form freely on an unlimited liability joint stock basis. Walter Bagehot, the renowned contemporary banking expert, warned that shares in such banks would ultimately be owned by...

The current financial crisis has given rise to calls to toughen considerably the codes of corporate governance put in place in many countries to regulate corporate behaviour (e.g. the UK Combined Code). These codes vary slightly in form but tend to contain a mix of non-discretionary regulations...

Legal origins theory suggests that law reform, strengthening shareholder and creditor rights, should enhance financial development. We use recently created datasets measuring legal change over time in a sample of 25 developing, developed and transition countries to test this claim. We find that...

This paper explores the scope for synthesis between economic and systemic approaches to the understanding of legal evolution. The evolutionary and epistemic branches of game theory predict that stable norms will emerge when agents share common beliefs concerning future states of the world....