Countries pursuing economic development confront a fundamental obstacle. Reforms that increase the size of the overall pie are blocked by powerful interests that are threatened by the growth-inducing changes. This problem is conspicuous in efforts to create effective capital markets to support...

In this paper, using new estimates of the size of the UK's capital market, we examine financial development and investor protection laws in Britain c.1900 to test the influential law and finance hypothesis. Our evidence suggests that there was not a close correlation between financial...

In this paper, using new estimates of the size of the UK’s capital market, we examine financial development and investor protection laws in Britain c.1900 to test the influential law and finance hypothesis. Our evidence suggests that there was not a close correlation between financial...

Financial regulation is a much debated topic for some time. The history of financial instruments started at a time when people started giving value to physical objects over and above its inherent utility. Right from the very beginning of their existence, it has been acknowledged that financial...

The Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2008 has demonstrated the fragility of prevailing corporate governance ideas and the weakness of legal means of minimizing risk and highlighting dangers in major banking corporations. Gatekeeper failure has undoubtedly been a significant contributor to this...

The controversy over the nature and extent of the gains from imperialism has been long and enduring, occupying, at one time or another, the attention of Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, David Ricardo, the Marxists, and contemporary observers. The assertion has been, and is still made, that the rich...

‘Global financial crisis' is an inaccurate description of the current upheaval in the world's financial markets. The initial banking crisis did not affect all countries to the same degree. Notably, while the US and UK banking systems were badly hit, those of the other two major Anglo-Saxon...

The return to economic liberalism in the Anglo-Saxon world was motivated by the apparent failure of Keynesian economic management to control the stagflation of the 1970s and early 1980s. In this context, the theories of economic liberalism, championed by Friederich von Hayek, Milton Friedman and...

The London Stock Exchange (LSE) has been an institution caught in the midst of political, economic and technological change. Systemic changes sweeping through the industry have set off chain reactions of demutualization, consolidation and diversification. The LSE has not been immune to these...

This article reviews the use in the flotation of Standard Life plc of the prospectus passport for cross-border offers of securities within the EU that was introduced by the Prospectus Directive (2003). The Standard Life flotation was a major test for the new law on prospectuses and, overall, it...