Law Commons^™

Insource The Shareholding Of Outsourced Employees: A Global Stock Ownership Plan, Robert C. Hockett

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

With the American economy stalled and another federal election campaign season well underway, the “outsourcing” of American jobs is again on the public agenda. Latest figures indicate not only that claims for joblessness benefits are up, but also that the rate of American job-exportation has more than doubled since the last electoral cycle. This year’s political candidates have been quick to take note. In consequence, more than at any time since the early 1990s, continued American participation in the World Trade Organization, in the North American Free Trade Agreement, and in the processes of global economic integration more generally appear …

Changing The Paradigm Of Stock Ownership From Concentrated Towards Dispersed Ownership? Evidence From Brazil And Consequences For Emerging Countries, Erica Gorga

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

This paper analyzes micro-level dynamics of changes in ownership structures. It investigates a unique event: changes in ownership patterns currently taking place in Brazil. It builds upon empirical evidence to advance theoretical understanding of how and why concentrated ownership structures can change towards dispersed ownership.

Commentators argue that the Brazilian capital markets are finally taking off. The number of listed companies and IPOs in the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange (Bovespa) has greatly increased. Firms are migrating to Bovespa’s special listing segments, which require higher standards of corporate governance. Companies have sold control in the market, and the stock market has …

Who Is The "Sovereign" In Sovereign Debt?: Reinterpreting A Rule-Of-Law Framework From The Early Twentieth Century, Odette Lienau

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Combining legal interpretation with political science analysis, this Article highlights the competing "statist" and "popular" conceptions of sovereignty at stake in sovereign debt issues. It argues that these two dominant approaches do not exhaust the offerings of intellectual history and considers an alternative approach that emerged in the early twentieth century and may be of relevance again today. The Article contends that U.S. Chief Justice Taft's foundational 1923 "Tinoco" decision, which grounds the current approach to sovereign governmental recognition, has been misinterpreted to support a purely statist or absolutist conception of sovereignty. It argues that a proper interpretation presents an …

Deconstructing Equity: Public Ownership, Agency Costs, And Complete Capital Markets, Charles K. Whitehead, Ronald J. Gilson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The traditional law and finance focus on agency costs presumes that the premise that diversified public shareholders are the cheapest risk bearers is immutable. In this Essay, we raise the possibility that changes in the capital markets have called this premise into question, drawn into sharp relief by the recent private equity wave in which the size and range of public companies being taken private expanded significantly. In brief, we argue that private owners, in increasingly complete markets, can transfer risk in discrete slices to counterparties who, in turn, can manage or otherwise diversify away those risks they choose to …

What's Your Sign? -- International Norms, Signals, And Compliance, Charles K. Whitehead

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article proposes a new approach to analyzing state compliance with international obligations, positing that increased interaction among the world's regulators has reinforced norms within cross-border regulatory networks, influencing the actions of senior regulators who are network members and, in turn, affecting levels of state compliance.

Network norms help define what state actions constitute signals and the meanings of those signals. Certain actions, such as implementing a substantive network standard, may be considered a concrete expression of an abstract network norm. States that fail to implement that standard risk failing to send the right signal, potentially incurring significant network sanctions. …

European Law On Capital Markets – Quo Vadis?, Daniela Huemer

Cornell Law School Inter-University Graduate Student Conference Papers

The occurrence of more than a dozen accounting scandals in the United States over the past few years have deeply shaken the capital market and have led some to believe that “corporate and legal culture has lost all sense of right and wrong.” Scandals at companies such as Enron and Worldcom have cost thousands of employees their jobs and caused thousands of investors to lose their investments completely. Similar scandals have happened in Europe as well, such as at Parmalat and Lernout & Hauspie, which has caused an increasing reluctance among investors to trust companies with their dollars.

These circumstances …

The Petrochina Syndrome: Regulating Capital Markets In The Anti-Globalization Era, Stephen F. Diamond

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

This article argues that the process of globalization has generated a legitimation deficit that can be the source of wasteful, even destructive, social and political conflict. I stylize this outcome as "the PetroChina Syndrome," after a leading example of the kind of activity generated in response to globalization, the PetroChina Campaign, where a coalition of labor, human rights, environmental, anti-slavery and religious groups worked together to oppose the initial public offering of a major Chinese oil company led by Goldman Sachs. The article begins with a discussion of this important but largely unexplored dimension of the anti-globalization era triggered by …

The Mechanisms Of Market Inefficiency: An Introduction To The New Finance, Lynn A. Stout

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

During the 1970s and early 1980s, the Efficient Capital Market Hypothesis (ECMH) became one of the most widely-accepted and influential ideas in finance economics. More recently, however, the idea of market efficiency has fallen into disrepute as a result of market events and growing empirical evidence of inefficiencies. This essay argues that the weaknesses of the efficient market theory are, and were, apparent from a careful inspection of its initial premises, including the presumptions of homogeneous investor expectations, effective arbitrage, and investor rationality. By the same token, a wide range of market phenomena inconsistent with the ECHM can be explained …

Financing Chinese Capitalism: Principal Banks, Economic Crisis, And Chinese Family Firms In Singapore, Henry W. Yeung

Cultural Approaches to Asian Financial Markets

It is a widely circulated myth that Chinese family firms rely exclusively on kinship ties and network capital to finance their domestic and international operations. In this empirical paper, I argue that large Chinese family firms are increasingly engaging with financial markets on a global scale. In order to finance their transnational business activities, these firms require financial services from banks beyond their domestic economies, resulting in a growing number and geographical spread of their principal banks. Second, I contend that as these Chinese family firms are diversifying their principal banks beyond a narrow confinement to other Chinese family-owned banks …

Globalization In Financial Services - What Role For Gats?, Chantal Thomas

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

International Debt Forgiveness And Global Poverty Reduction, Chantal Thomas

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Why The Law Hates Speculators: Regulation And Private Ordering In The Market For Otc Derivatives, Lynn A. Stout

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

A wide variety of statutory and common law doctrines in American law evidence hostility towards speculation. Conventional economic theory, however, generally views speculation as an efficient form of trading that shifts risk to those who can bear it most easily and improves the accuracy of market prices. This Article reconciles the apparent conflict between legal tradition and economic theory by explaining why some forms of speculative trading may be inefficient. It presents a heterogeneous expectations model of speculative trading that offers important insights into antispeculation laws in general, and the ongoing debate concerning over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives in particular.

Although trading …

Larger Board Size And Decreasing Firm Value In Small Firms, Theodore Eisenberg, Stefan Sundgren, Martin T. Wells

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Several studies hypothesize a relation between board size and financial performance. Empirical tests of the relation exist in only a few studies of large U.S. firms. We find a significant negative correlation between board size and profitability in a sample of small and midsize Finnish firms. Finding a board-size effect for a new and different class of firms affects the range of explanations for the board-size effect.

How Efficient Markets Undervalue Stocks: Capm And Ecmh Under Conditions Of Uncertainty And Disagreement, Lynn A. Stout

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Betting The Bank: How Derivatives Trading Under Conditions Of Uncertainty Can Increase Risks And Erode Returns In Financial Markets, Lynn A. Stout

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

On April 12, 1994, Procter & Gamble Co. announced that it had incurred pre-tax losses of $157 million from trading in leveraged interest rate swaps, a form of financial derivative. At the time that figure seemed enormous. Yet within a year, Procter & Gamble's misfortune had been overshadowed by that of Orange County, a wealthy California enclave that lost an estimated $2.5 billion of its investment fund as a result of dealings in reverse-repurchase agreements, inverse floaters, and other arcane instruments. Recent months have seen further losses by investment funds, government entities, and even colleges and Native American tribes. Perhaps …

Creditors' Rights Against Participants In A Leveraged Buyout, Emily Sherwin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.