This paper examines the origins of investor protection under the common law by analysing the development of shareholder protection in Victorian Britain, the home of the common law. In this era, very little was codified, with corporate law simply suggesting a default template of rules....

This paper examines the origins of investor protection under the common law by analysing the development of shareholder protection in Victorian Britain, the home of the common law. In this era, very little was codified, with corporate law simply suggesting a default template of rules....

The ideological chasm between environmentalism and a profit driven corporate agenda at times seems insurmountable. Environmental regulation at present is highly reliant upon statutory regulation and governmental intervention whilst corporations law is based to the greatest extent possible on an...

The "law matters" thesis implies countries will not develop a robust stock market or diffuse corporate ownership structures unless laws are in place that curtail the extraction of private benefits of control by large shareholders and address information asymmetries from which outside investors...

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...