This paper considers the topic of private regulation and enforcement for internationally active financial services firms. The paper documents the following types of regulation and enforcement that involve significant private input: house rules, contracts, internal compliance, management-based...

This Paper develops extensive new indices of legal independence (Central Bank Independence, or CBI) for new central banks in 26 former socialist economies (FSEs). The indices reveal that central bank reform in the FSE during the 1990s has been quite ambitious. In spite of large price shocks,...

This pioneering Handbook contains specially-commissioned chapters on tort law from leading experts in the field. This volume evaluates issues of vital importance to those seeking to understand and reform the tort law and the litigation process, taking a multi-disciplinary approach, including...

We study jury trial waivers in a data set of 2,816 contracts contained as exhibits in Form 8-K filings by reporting corporations during 2002. Because these contracts are associated with events deemed material to the financial condition of SEC-reporting firms, they likely are carefully negotiated...

Legal scholars devote much attention to the incorporation puzzle - why corporations so frequently incorporate in Delaware. This paper suggests that focusing on the incorporation decision overlooks a broader but intimately related set of questions. Choosing Delaware as the incorporation situs is,...

International law-making by sub-national actors and regulatory networks of bureaucrats has come under attack as lacking in accountability and legitimacy. Global administrative law is emerging as an approach to understanding what international organizations and national governments do, or ought...

Viewed against the backdrop of European company law generally, the U.K. and U.S. systems of corporate governance are remarkably similar. However, there are several salient differences between the system, including the fact that the U.K. has a more robust and less regulated takeover market than...

This paper presents an interest group theory of central bank independence. The theory is grounded in the concept of rent extraction. In the absence of an independent central bank, politicians can benefit in the short run by creating an unanticipated burst of inflation that unravels many interest...