Prior to the industrial revolution, the predominant form of economic organization in western Europe and north America was the guild. Guilds were network forms, loose associations of independent producers, with strong local and regional identities, in which cooperation and competition were...

The timing and nature of industrialization in Britain and continental Europe had significant consequences for the growth and development of labour market institutions, effects which are still felt today and which are visible in the conceptual structure of labour law and company law in different...

This paper extends the analysis carried out by the authors for the UK Law Commissions and published as Part 3 of the Consultation Paper on Directors, Duties (September 1998). After considering some of the potential uses of economics in company law, the paper develops a theoretical framework...

This paper offers a qualitative, case-study based analysis of hostile takeover bids mounted in the UK in the mid-1990s under the regime of the City Code on Takeovers and Mergers. It is shown that during bids, directors of bid targets focus on the concerns of target shareholders to the exclusion...

The article analyses the institutional basis and form of the employment contract in Britain using the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey. It assesses the extent to which collective bargaining still regulates pay and non-pay aspects of employment. The paper shows that while collective...

We present a model of CSR as a set of mechanisms for aligning corporate behaviour with the interests of society in reducing externalities and promoting a sustainable corporate sector. These mechanisms include voluntary action by companies to go above minimum legal standards, with the aim of...

The Major Projects Agreement (MPA) is a framework agreement designed to improve performance in large mechanical and electrical engineering projects. It is built on integrated team working and includes the trade union as a partner in strategic, organizational and employment decisions. The...

We test the 'law matters' and 'legal origin' claims using a newly created panel dataset meas-uring legal change over time in a sample of developed and developing countries. Our dataset improves on previous ones by avoiding country-specific variables in favour of functional and generic...

Two models of regulatory competition are contrasted, one based on a US pattern of Ôcompetitive federalismÕ, the other a European conception of Ôreflexive harmonisationÕ. In the European context, harmonization of corporate and labour law, contrary to its critics, has been a force for the...

Capacity may be defined as a status conferred by law for the purpose of empowering persons to participate in the operations of a market economy. This paper argues that because of the confining influence of the classical private law of the nineteenth century, we currently lack a convincing theory...