Law & Capitalism: What Corporate Crises Reveal about Legal Systems and Economic Development around the World » (Reprint)

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.

Recent high-profile corporate scandals—such as those involving Enron in the United States, Yukos in Russia, and Livedoor in Japan—demonstrate challenges to the legal regulation of business practices in capitalist economies. Setting forth a new analytic framework for understanding these problems, Law and Capitalism examines contemporary corporate governance crises in six countries.

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.

Harvard Law Review

"The title of Law & Capitalism, a remarkable new book . . . might seem to suggest that Millhaupt and Pistor are adding their voices to the choir. If this is what one were expecting, however, that expectation would quickly be dashed. Nearly every page of Law & Capitalism stands in implicit or explicit dissent from the prevailing view."

— David A. Skeel, Jr.

Preface ix

Introduction 1

Part I From Weber to the World Bank, and Beyond

1 The Prevailing View: Impact, Assumptions, and Problems 17

2 Rethinking the Relation between Legal and Economic Development 27

Part II Institutional Autopsies

3 The Enron Scandal: Legal Reform and Investor Protection in the United States 47

4 The Mannesmann Executive Compensation Trial in Germany 69

5 The Livedoor Bid and Hostile Takeovers in Japan: Postwar Law and Capitalism at the Crossroads 87

6 Law, Growth, and Reform in Korea: The SK Episode 109

7 The China Aviation Oil Episode: Law and Development in China and Singapore 125

8 “Renationalizing” Yukos: Law and Control over Natural Resources in the Russian Economy 149

Part III Implications and Extensions

9 Understanding Legal Systems 173

10 Legal Change 197

11 Conclusion 219

Notes 225

References 249

Index 263