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Series

Columbia Law School

2002

Corporate law

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

The Evolution Of Corporate Law: A Cross- Country Comparison, Katharina Pistor, Yoram Keinan, Jan Kleinheisterkamp, Mark D. West Jan 2002

The Evolution Of Corporate Law: A Cross- Country Comparison, Katharina Pistor, Yoram Keinan, Jan Kleinheisterkamp, Mark D. West

Faculty Scholarship

The importance of law and legal institutions for economic development is widely acknowledged today. The invention of credit mechanisms to support long-distance trade has been hailed as one of the preconditions for the development of capitalism in Europe. The corporate form is regarded as another milestone for industrialization, the creation of viable market economies, and ultimately economic prosperity. Many former socialist countries quickly enacted new corporate codes or revived their pre-World War Two ("WWII") legislation. The failure of major privatization efforts to enhance enterprise efficiency is attributed to weaknesses in corporate governance, of which the corporate law is a crucial …


Endowment Effects Within Corporate Agency Relationships, Jennifer H. Arlen, Matthew L. Spitzer, Eric L. Talley Jan 2002

Endowment Effects Within Corporate Agency Relationships, Jennifer H. Arlen, Matthew L. Spitzer, Eric L. Talley

Faculty Scholarship

Behavioral economics is an increasingly prominent field within corporate law scholarship. A particularly noteworthy behavioral bias is the "endowment effect" – the observed differential between an individual's willingness to pay to obtain an entitlement and her willingness to accept to part with one. Should endowment effects pervade corporate contexts, they would significantly complicate much common wisdom within business law, such as the presumed optimality of ex ante agreements. Existing research, however, does not adequately address the extent to which people manifest endowment effects within agency relationships. This article presents an experimental test for endowment effects for subjects situated in an …