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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Cyclical Transformations Of The Coporate Form: A Historical Pespective On Corporate Social Responsibility, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
The Cyclical Transformations Of The Coporate Form: A Historical Pespective On Corporate Social Responsibility, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
This Article describes the transformations underwent by the corporate form from its Roman origins to the present. It shows that every time there was a shift in the role of the corporation, three theories of the corporation (the aggregate, artificial, and real entity theories) were brought forward in cyclical fashion. However, every time the real entity theory prevailed, and it is the dominant theory during periods of stability in the relationship between the corporation, the shareholders, and the state. The article describes this evolution in detail, and then attempts to derive normative consequences for the legitimacy of corporate social responsibility …
Corporate Defendants And The Protections Of Criminal Procedure: An Economic Analysis, Vikramaditya S. Khanna
Corporate Defendants And The Protections Of Criminal Procedure: An Economic Analysis, Vikramaditya S. Khanna
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
Corporations are frequently treated as “persons” under the law. One of the fundamental questions associated with this treatment is whether corporations should receive the same Constitutional protections and guarantees as natural persons. In particular, should corporations receive the Constitutional protections of Criminal Procedure? After all, corporations cannot be sent to jail so the sanctions they face are essentially the same as in civil proceedings. If so, then why not have the same procedural protections for corporate defendants in civil and criminal cases? Little scholarly analysis has focused on this issue from an economic perspective and this article aims to fill …
Corporations, Society And The State: A Defense Of The Corporate Tax, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Corporations, Society And The State: A Defense Of The Corporate Tax, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
This article attempts to provide the first comprehensive rationale for defending the current corporate income tax. It argues that the usual reasons given for the tax (primarily as an indirect way of taxing shareholders, or alternatively as a form of benefit tax) are inadequate. It then explains what the original rationale to adopt this tax was in 1909, namely to regulate managerial power, and that this rationale stems from the real view of the corporation, which was the dominant view throughout the many transformations underwent by the corporate form from Roman times to the present. Turning to normative argument, the …
Politics And The Business Corporation, Robert H. Sitkoff
Politics And The Business Corporation, Robert H. Sitkoff
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
This essay explores the policy bases for, and the political economy of, the law's long-standing regulation of corporate political speech. The essay has three parts. First, it contends that the conventional justifications for regulating corporate interventions in politics -- that corporate donations unnaturally skew the political discourse (bad politics) and that corporate political donations harm shareholders (agency costs) -- assume irrational investors and substantial capital market inefficiency. Drawing on public choice theory, the essay also explores the aim of retarding rent-seeking as an alternative justification for regulating corporate interventions in politics. Second, the essay reexamines the history of the regulation …
Trust Law, Corporate Law, And Capital Market Efficiency, Robert H. Sitkoff
Trust Law, Corporate Law, And Capital Market Efficiency, Robert H. Sitkoff
Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009
In both the publicly-traded corporation and the private donative trust a crucial task is to minimize the agency costs that arise from the separation of risk-bearing and management. But where the law of corporate governance evolved in the shadow of capital-market checks on agency costs, trust governance did not. Thus, even more than that of close corporations, the law and study of private trusts offers an illuminating counterfactual -- a control, as it were - for a playful thought experiment about the importance of capital market efficiency to the law and study of public corporations. The animating idea for this …