Legal conflicts between multinational firms and host governments are often decided by international arbitration panels - as opposed to courts in the host country - due to provisions in international investment agreements known as Investor State Dispute Settlements (ISDS). Critics fear that...

A consequence of global trade liberalization is that domestic regulatory policies have become a focal point for efforts to reduce the costs of engaging in cross-border production and exchange. This article discusses the general challenges of reducing trade frictions created by regulatory...

This paper examines how the capital structure of non-financial firms is affected by international variation in bank regulation. A concise model yields an estimating equation that relates a firm's capital structure to bank regulatory variables and their interactions with the tax rate reflecting...

In recent decades, a large and increasing number of leading firms in a diverse set of industries have faced allegations of ‘unethical' practices along their international value chains. In many cases this has triggered consumer boycotts and NGO campaigns, introducing a new link between upstream...

This paper discusses the role that the capacity of corporate registries plays in fighting tax evasion and related crimes. It reviews the current state of research and data availability around the capacity of company registration systems. It further presents results from a new survey sent out by...

We empirically estimate the effects of regulated access prices and firms' multinational status on firm performance by using firm, corporate group, and country level information for the European broadband market between 2002 and 2010. Three measures of firm performance are used, namely: market...

In prior work, I suggested the way in which private enterprises have been developing coherent systems of governance that draw on but are autonomous of law and state based legal systems. In this essay I suggest the challenges to the erection of a similar coherent system of legal regulation by or...

This scoping paper examines the balance between investor protection and the right to regulate in investment treaties and investment treaty policy. It notes the growing trend to analyse the impact of particular treaty rules rather than treaties as a whole. It also points to the importance of...

The recent emergence of SWFs as active and important players in international financial markets has raised a host of questions about their likely effect on markets and states. This trend is further reinforced in 2010/2011 by the fact that despite the fears and turbulences that spread all over...