Corporate structures differ among the advanced economies of the world. We contribute to an understanding of these differences by developing a theory of the path dependence of corporate structure. The corporate structures that an economy has at any point in time depend in part on those that it...

The large public firm dominates business in the United States despite its critical infirmities, namely the frequently fragile relations between stockholders and managers. Managers' agendas can differ from shareholders'; tying managers tightly to shareholders has been central to American...

In this review piece, I outline the institutions of corporate governance decision-making in the large public firm in the wealthy West. By corporate governance, I mean the relationships at the top of the firm - the board of directors, the senior managers, and the stockholders. By institutions I...

A revisionist consensus among corporate law academics has begun to coalesce that, after a century of academic thinking to the contrary, states do not compete head-to-head on an ongoing basis for chartering revenues, leaving Delaware alone in the ongoing interstate charter market. The revisionist...

Ascertaining which enforcement mechanisms work to protect investors has been both a focus of recent work in academic finance and an issue for policy-making at international development agencies. According to recent academic work, private enforcement of investor protection via both disclosure and...

Legal origin - civil vs. common law - is said in much modern economic work to determine the strength of financial markets and the structure of corporate ownership, even in the world''s richer nations. The main means are thought to lie in how investor protection and property protection connect to...

American corporate-law scholars have focused on jurisdictional competition as an engine-usually as the engine-making American corporate law. Recent decisions in the European Court of Justice open up the possibility of similar competition in the EU. That has led analysts to wonder whether a...