Law Commons^™

Multinational Activity In The Modern World, James R. Hines Jr., Fritz C. Foley, Raymond J. Malatoni Jr., David Wessel

Book Chapters

Multinational corporations are the global goliaths of modern times. These entities collectively are responsible for large portions of world production, employment, investment, international trade, research, and innovation. Although their economic impact is most pronounced in high-income countries, where their activities have been concentrated historically, their reach increasingly extends to every corner of the world. Decisions made by these firms affect not only those who work for them, buy from them, do business with them, and compete with them, but also communities and countries in which they are located. As a result, their operations and activities are subjects of considerable interest …

Principles For Policymakers, James R. Hines Jr.

Book Chapters

Multinational corporations are global goliaths, but they have not conquered the world, nor are they responsible for every economic ill, as is sometimes alleged. These firms contribute to global prosperity by improving productivity and efficiency, innovating, and creating jobs-mostly good jobs-in both home and host countries. Governments lavish attention on multinational corporations, seeking the good that accompanies their investments even as policymakers worry about the influence multinational firms have on the local environment, social conditions, and politics. In this regard, governments face the tradeoffs that commonly afflict economic policymaking. Efforts to control the actions of multinational firms typically come at …

Alternative Trading Platforms In The United States: Incentives For Innovation In The Us Stock Market, Gabriel V. Rauterberg

Book Chapters

Is something wrong with the structure of our stock market? Recent scholarship faults the equity market for its lack of innovation. In particular, commentators stringently criticize the continuous nature of modern trading for baking in a wasteful arms race for speed among high-frequency traders. Under their current structure, stock exchanges process incoming instructions to trade in the order they arrive and as quickly as possible, which means in millionths of a second or less. The result is a race for technological speed because market participants can earn profits from being the first to trade on new information, even when that …

Income Inequality, Progressive Taxation And Tax Expenditures, James R. Hines Jr.

Book Chapters

There are important and growing concerns about income inequality in the United States and other high-income countries. These concerns reflect rising apprehension about the political and social consequences of inequality and worries that the advance of technology, expanding international trade and investment, and other economic developments may have significantly widened income gaps in recent decades and will continue to do so in the future. In the United States, these concerns have prompted renewed calls for political activism and vigorous searches for policy measures that might improve the relative economic positions of low- and middle-income Americans.

There are many ways in …

Cross-Border Corporate Insolvency In The Era Of Soft(Ish) Law, John A.E. Pottow

Book Chapters

Insolvency law (bankruptcy law to some) moves so quickly in the cross-border realm that this piece's discussion, started in 2015, is probably already outdated. Nonetheless, I publish it unrepentantly because it turns overdue attention to the role of soft law in this domain. Building on earlier work in which I address the role of incrementalism, I discuss the marked success of the UNCITRAL Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency and its cognate Insolvency Regulation in the EU (the latter now into its "Recast"). As predicted/hoped, the EU Recast, joining other contemporaneous reform projects, is building upon the scaffolding of legal doctrines …

Christianity And The International Economic Order, Daniel A. Crane

Book Chapters

The relationship between Christianity and the global economic order is murky. The influence of certain Christian thinkers can be seen in certain aspects of the international economic system, but it would be difficult to sustain the case that the system pervasively reflects a Christian character. There is little ongoing engagement between formal Christian institutions (churches or church groups) and formal political institutions such as the WTO, IMF, or World Bank, because the work of elite global political institutions has become technical, technocratic, and specialized. At a retail level, Christians of course exert influence on the global economy in their capacities …

Fiduciary Principles In Chinese Law, Nicholas C. Howson

Book Chapters

This chapter examines the principles of fiduciary doctrine that are found in Chinese law, with a particular focus on developments in law and regulation in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) after the early 1980s. It also considers the advent and elaboration of what the Anglo-American legal system calls “corporate fiduciary duties,” including partnership fiduciary duties. The chapter first provides an overview of basic conceptions of corporate fiduciary duties that entered Chinese law and practice through at least three separate tracks: academic, regulatory, and jurisprudential. It then explores corporate and partnership fiduciary duties after 2006, placing emphasis on corporate law …

Conclusion - Between "Law In Books" And "Law In Action", Nicholas C. Howson, H. Huang

Book Chapters

Any attempt to comprehensively analyse the enforcement of corporate law and securities regulation is difficult, not only because there are so many distinct national systems in play, but also because, we need to examine both formal enforcement mechanisms and the way in which such mechanisms are applied in practice. If nothing else, the expert analyses presented in the foregoing chapters of this book confirm that with respect to enforcement issues a rather large gap does exist between what Roscoe Pound memorably called 'law in books' and 'law in action'.

Comment On 'Fundamental Tax Reform: A Comparison Of Three Options', James R. Hines Jr.

Book Chapters

Alan Viard’s chapter, “Fundamental Tax Reform: A Comparison of Three Options” is a thoughtful, even-handed, and most worthwhile contribution to the analysis of major reforms that, if adopted, would move the tax system strongly in the direction of taxing consumption. The chapter nicely illustrates the complexity of the tax reform problem by exposing a range of available reform options, with an accompanying range of welfare implications. Even among tax reforms with common objectives, there can be strongly differing economic and distributional consequences. Furthermore, otherwise-similar reforms can and do appeal to very different political constituencies....

A Revisionist History Of Regulatory Capture, William J. Novak

Book Chapters

The idea of regulatory capture has controlled discussions of economic regulation and regulatory reform for more than two generations. Originating soon after World War II, the so-called capture thesis was an early harbinger of the more general critique of the American regulatory state that dominated the closing decades of the twentieth century. The political ramifications of that broad critique of government continue to be felt today both in the resilient influence of neoliberal policies such as deregulation and privatization as well as in the rise of more virulent and populist forms of anti-statism. Indeed, the capture thesis has so pervaded …

Pathway To Minority Shareholder Protection: Derivative Actions In The People's Republic Of China, Donald C. Clarke, Nicholas C. Howson

Book Chapters

Using a dataset of Chinese judicial opinions arising in over fifty cases, this paper analyses the development and current implementation of shareholder derivative actions in the courts of the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”), both before and after the derivative lawsuit was explicitly authorized in the PRC’s 2006 Company Law effective January 1, 2006. In addition, we describe the very unique ecology of enterprise organization and corporate governance in modern China, and critique the formal design of the derivative action and offer reform suggestions. We find the design of the Chinese derivative lawsuit to be, in some respects, innovative and …

Rethinking Treaty Shopping: Lessons For The European Union, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, C. H. Panayi

Book Chapters

Whilst treaty shopping is not a new phenomenon, it remains as controversial as ever. It would seem that the more countries try to deal with it, the wider the disagreements as to what is improper treaty shopping and what is legitimate tax planning. In this paper, we reassess the traditional quasi-definitions of treaty shopping in an attempt to delineate the contours of such practices. We examine the various theoretical arguments advanced to justify the campaign against treaty shopping. We also consider the current trends in treaty shopping and the anti-treaty shopping policies under the OECD Model and the US Model. …

Law, Economics, And Torture, James Boyd White

Book Chapters

This paper addresses three sets of questions, among which it wishes to draw connections: (1) Why has there been so little resistance to the recent massive transfer of national wealth to the rich and super-rich? It is the majority who are injured, and they presumably hold the power in a democracy: why have they not exercised it? (2) Why are law schools so dominated by questions of policy, with rather little interest in the intellectual and linguistic activities of the practicing lawyer and judge? Why indeed do judicial opinions themselves seem so often to be written in a dead and …

The Role Of Nonprofits In Ced, Dana A. Thompson

Book Chapters

Nonprofit institutions play an integral role in community economic development (CED) in the United States. These entities initiate and implement most CED activities, and the CED movement would be significantly weakened without their existence. This chapter briefly explores the historical context of various nonprofit organizations in assisting low- and moderate-income communities across the United States, the ways in which modern-day nonprofit organizations are effecting change in their communities, and the challenges to their effectiveness.

The first section of this chapter discusses community development corporations (CDCs), neighborhood-based organizations that are the primary instruments used to drive and implement revitalization in low- …

Banking The Poor: Overcoming The Financial Services Mismatch, Michael S. Barr

Book Chapters

Low-income households often lack access to bank accounts and face high costs for transacting basic financial services through check cashers and other alternative financial service providers. Twenty-two percent of low- and moderateincome American households do not have a checking or savings account. Many other "underbanked" families have bank accounts but still rely on high-cost financial services. These households find it more difficult to save and plan financially for the future. Living paycheck to paycheck leaves them vulnerable to medical or job emergencies that may endanger their financial stability, and lack of longer-term savings undermines their ability to improve skills, purchase …

A Multinational Perspective On Capital Structure Choice And Internal Capital Markets, Mihir A. Desai, C. Fritz Foley, James R. Hines Jr.

Book Chapters

This paper analyzes the capital structures of foreign affiliates and internal capital markets of multinational corporations. Ten percent higher local tax rates are associated with 2.8% higher debt/asset ratios, with internal borrowing being particularly sensitive to taxes. Multinational affiliates are financed with less external debt in countries with underdeveloped capital markets or weak creditor rights, reflecting significantly higher local borrowing costs. Instrumental variable analysis indicates that greater borrowing from parent companies substitutes for three-quarters of reduced external borrowing induced by capital market conditions. Multinational firms appear to employ internal capital markets opportunistically to overcome imperfections in external capital markets.

Causation And Forseeability, Omri Ben-Shahar

Book Chapters

This chapter begins with a survey of the implicit role of causation in the writings of the early, pathbreaking economic analysts of tort law. It then clarifies the basic distinction between retrospective (ex post) causation and prospective (ex ante) causation, a distinction that forms the core of many subsequent economic discussions of causation. Next, the explicit role of causation doctrines in inducing optimal care and activity levels is examined under the strict liability and the negligence regimes. The analysis is then extended to cover several complications often plaguing the determination of causation: uncertainty over causation, joint actions among tortfeasors and …

The Right To An Adequate Income And Employment: A Reply To Professor Bernstein, David L. Chambers

Book Chapters

Bernsteins's Paper advances no constitutional arguments for requiring the government to ensure economic security for retarded citizens. His omission is justified not merely by the alternative focus he has chosen, but also by the absence of any sound or vendible constitutional arguments to advance. There remain, however, important roles for attorneys.

A View From Labor, Theodore J. St. Antoine, N. Goldfinger

Book Chapters

It will come as no surprise that our attitude, as union spokesmen, toward further extension of the antitrust laws over the activities of American labor organizations is much like the attitude of Calvin Coolidge's minister toward sin: we're against it. We feel our attitude is justified. But in contributing to a volume graced by so distinguished a company of scholars, it may be best that we do not confine ourselves merely to developing our own case in support of a conclusion which some might accuse us of having harbored all along.

We therefore shall take two different approaches. First, we …