Law and Capitalism

Recent high-profile corporate scandalssuch as those involving Enron in the United States, Yukos in Russia, and Livedoor in Japandemonstrate challenges to legal regulation of business practices in capitalist economies. Setting forth a new analytic framework for understanding these problems,Law and Capitalismexamines such contemporary corporate governance crises in six countries, to shed light on the interaction of legal systems and economic change. This provocative book debunks the simplistic view of law's instrumental function for financial market development and economic growth. Using comparative case studies that address the United States, China, Germany, Japan, Korea, and Russia, Curtis J. Milhaupt and Katharina Pistor argue that a disparate blend of legal and nonlegal mechanisms have supported economic growth around the world. Their groundbreaking findings show that law and markets evolve together in a "rolling relationship," and legal systems, including those of the most successful economies, therefore differ significantly in their organizational characteristics. Innovative and insightful,Law and Capitalismwill change the way lawyers, economists, policy makers, and business leaders think about legal regulation in an increasingly global market for capital and corporate governance.

Curtis J. Milhaupt is the Fuyo Professor of Law and director of the Center for Japanese Legal Studies at Columbia Law School. He is the author of Global Markets, Domestic Institutions.
 
Katharina Pistor is professor of law at Columbia Law School.