Using ownership and control data for 890 firm-years, this paper examines the concentration of capital and voting rights in British companies in the second half of the nineteenth century. We find that both capital and voting rights were diffuse by modern-day standards. This implies that ownership...

Using ownership and control data for 890 firm-years, this paper examines the concentration of capital and voting rights in British companies in the second half of the nineteenth century. We find that both capital and voting rights were diffuse by modern-day standards. This implies that ownership...

This study of initial public offerings (IPOs) carried out on the Berlin and London stock exchanges between 1900 and 1913 casts doubt on the received "law and finance" wisdom that legally mandated investor protection is pivotal to the development of capital markets. IPOs that resulted in official...

This article asserts that newspapers' quest for copyright protection was an early step onto a slippery slope toward a property-based, rather than service-based, ethos, and that removing that protection may at the least mark a first, symbolic step back from the abyss. Part I examines the state of...

Internet file-sharing of copyrighted materials created a struggle between right holders, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and file-sharers. After several different attempts to resolve the struggle, many countries began to debate the possibility of a Three Strikes Policy (3SP), which includes,...

This Essay discusses two historical parallels between the current financial crisis and the financial crisis of the late 1920s and 1930s. First, financial innovation was at the core of both crises. In particular, the machinations of Ivar Kreuger illuminate how financial innovation tends to...

This study of initial public offerings (IPOs) carried out on the Berlin and London stock exchanges between 1900 and 1913 casts doubt on the received law and finance wisdom that legally mandated investor protection is pivotal to the development of capital markets. IPOs that resulted in official...