Law and Economics Commons^™

Is Moderation The Highest Virtue? A Comparative Study Of A Middle Way Of Control Transaction Regimes, Yueh-Ping Yang, Pin-Hsien Lee

Yueh-Ping Yang

Comparative studies of control transaction regimes mostly compare between the Market Rule as adopted in the U.S. and the General Offer Rule ad adopted in European Union, while paying less attention to the Partial Offer Rule, a middle way model adopted in many East Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, etc. In this paper, we attempt to fill this gap by highlighting the Partial Offer Rule adopted in these countries, analyzing this rule’s theoretical foundation and observing its implementation in practice. Our theoretical analyses of the Partial Offer Rule are comprised of two parts. First, by adding …

Puzzles In Controlling Shareholder Regimes And China: Shareholder Primacy And (Quasi) Monopoly, Sang Yop Kang

Sang Yop Kang

Professor Mark Roe explained that the shareholder wealth maximization norm (“the norm”) is not fit for a country with a (quasi) monopoly, because the norm encourages managers to maximize monopoly rents, to the detriment of the national economy. This Article provides new findings and counter-intuitive arguments as to the tension created by the norm and (quasi) monopoly by exploring three key corporate governance concepts that Roe did not examine—(1) “controlling minority structure” (CMS), where dominant shareholders hold a fractional ownership in their controlled-corporations, (2) “tunneling” (i.e., illicit transfer of corporate wealth to controlling shareholders), and (3) Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs). …

Democratizing Startups, Seth C. Oranburg

Seth C Oranburg

The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012 intends to “help entrepreneurs raise the capital they need to put Americans back to work and create an economy that’s built to last.” The goal is to “democratize startups” by making capital available to diverse entrepreneurs in new geographies. Yet the net effect of securities regulations and market conditions is the opposite. Startup companies are encouraged to stay private so capital is consolidating in large, mature firms instead of recycling into new startups. Evidence of consolidation is that once-rare “Unicorns” (billion-dollar startups) now number over 111. More money is going into huge …

Limiting Leukophobia: Looking Beyond Lockup. Debunking The Strategy Of Turning White Collars Orange, Jared J. Hight

Jared J Hight

The legal and political landscape of the past 30 years has resulted in the abandonment of the utilitarian principle of parsimony as applied to white collar criminals. In response to preceding decades of minor punishments meted out for serious white collar crimes, the Federal Sentencing Commission abandoned the typical past practices of sentencing judges and instead formulated Guidelines that are wildly excessive and no longer balance the need for community safety with the need for that same community to remain economically efficient. The guiding principles of deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation have been deemphasized in a new model that focuses primarily …

The Moral Undercurrent Beneath The Regulatory Regime Of Investor Protection, Huhnkie Lee

Huhnkie Lee

No abstract provided.

The Law And Ethics Of High-Frequency Trading, Steven R. Mcnamara

Steven R. McNamara

Michael Lewis’s recent book Flash Boys has resurrected the controversy concerning “high-frequency trading” (HFT) in the stock markets. While HFT has been important in the stock markets for about a decade, and may have already peaked in terms of its economic significance, it touched a nerve with a public suspicious of financial institutions in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008-2009. In reality, HFT is not one thing, but a wide array of practices conducted by technologically adept electronic traders. Some of these practices are benign, and some even bring benefits such as liquidity and improved price discovery to …

Bridgefunding Is Crowdfunding For Startups Across The Private Equity Gap, Seth C. Oranburg

Seth C Oranburg

Title III of the JOBS Act of 2012, which attempts to encourage entrepreneurship by allowing startups and small business to sell stock to the general public over the Internet through “crowdfunding,” is completely backwards. Its ceiling should be a floor—the $1 million limit should be inverted. By capping startups at raising $1 million from crowdfunding, the JOBS Act does not address the private equity gap, a fundamental problem in startup markets, and exposes unsophisticated investors to risk and fraud. This Article presents a regulatory framework premised on “bridgefunding,” an approach that this article develops to protect new investors by encouraging …

Re-Envisioning Investors’ Anti-Director Rights Index: Theory, Criticism, And Implications, Sang Yop Kang

Sang Yop Kang

‘Law and Finance’ theory – which offers analytical frameworks to measure the protection of public investors and the quality of corporate governance – has dominated the comparative corporate governance scholarship in the last decade. So far, many proponents and critics have had debates on the relevance of the theory and the implications of the theory’s empirical studies. Several important points in relation to shareholder protection, however, have been highly neglected in these debates. In particular, the significance of one-share-one-vote (OSOV) rule has been inappropriately underestimated. In response, this Article explores (1) why OSOV is an utmost critical component in corporate …

The Rise And Rise Of The One Percent: Getting To Thomas Piketty's Wealth Dystopia, Shi-Ling Hsu

Shi-Ling Hsu

Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-first Century, which is surely one of the very few economics treatises ever to be a best-seller, has parachuted into an intensely emotional and deeply divisive American debate: the problem of inequality in the United States. Piketty's core argument is that throughout history, the rate of return on private capital has usually exceeded the rate of economic growth, expressed by Piketty as the relation r > g. If true, this relation means that the wealthy class – who are the predominant owners of capital – will grow their wealth faster than economies grow, which …

Insider Trading And Evolutionary Psychology: Strong Reciprocity, Cheater Detection, And The Expanding Boundaries Of The Law, Steven R. Mcnamara

Steven R. McNamara

Insider trading law has expanded in recent years to cover instances of trading on non-public information that fall outside of the fiduciary duty framework set forth in the landmark cases of Chiarella and Dirks. The trend towards a broader insider trading law moves the law closer towards what evolutionary psychology tells us humans desire when engaging in collective action: that individuals benefit in proportion to the effort or investment they make in a common enterprise. Insider trading law can therefore be understood as a societal response to cheating in group activities, and the recent expansion of the law as …

Controlling Shareholders: Benevolent “King” Or Ruthless “Pirate”, Sang Yop Kang

Sang Yop Kang

Unfair self-dealing and expropriation of minority shareholders by a controlling shareholder are common business practices in developing countries (“bad-law countries”). Although controlling shareholder agency problems have been well studied so far, there are many questions unanswered in relation to behaviors and motivations of controlling shareholders. For example, a puzzle is that some controlling shareholders in bad-law countries voluntarily extract minority shareholders less than other controlling shareholders. Applying Mancur Olson’s framework of political theory of “banditry” to the context of corporate governance, this Article proposes that there are at least two categories of controlling shareholders. “Roving controllers” are dominant shareholders with …

Re-Envisioning The Controlling Shareholder Regime: Why Controlling Shareholders And Minority Shareholders Embrace Each Other, Sang Yop Kang

Sang Yop Kang

According to conventional corporate governance scholarship, controlling shareholder regimes exist in jurisdictions where minority shareholders are not well protected by controlling shareholders’ expropriation. However, Professor Ronald Gilson raises a critical point against the conventional view; if laws are inefficient and do not protect investors, as the conventional view explains, why do we observe any minority shareholders at all in such “bad-law” countries? One possible reason is that in response to controlling shareholders’ expropriation, minority shareholders discount severely shares that corporations issue. Then, a related question is: if it is true, why do some controlling shareholders in bad-law countries have many …

Present At The Creation: Reflections On The Early Years Of The National Association Of Corporate Directors, Lawrence J. Trautman

Lawrence J. Trautman Sr.

Effective corporate governance is critical to the productive operation of the global economy and preservation of our way of life. Excellent governance execution is also required to achieve economic growth and robust job creation in any country. In the United States, the premier director membership organization is the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD). Now over 36 years old, NACD plays a major role in fostering excellence in corporate governance in the United States and beyond. Over the past thirty-six years NACD has grown from a mere realization of the importance of corporate governance to become the only national membership …

Transaction Cost-Benefit Analysis, With Applications To Financial Regulation, D. Bruce Johnsen

D. Bruce Johnsen

As Coase convincingly showed, transaction costs inhibit the ability of market participants to achieve first-best outcomes. This paper proposes a novel and relatively simple alternative to traditional cost-benefit analysis when regulated parties face sufficiently low transaction costs that they can bargain directly or rely on competitive markets to set efficient terms of trade. In these settings, the only informational burdens financial market regulators need bear to assess corrective rules is to identify the relevant parties, the “good” they hope to exchange, and the transaction costs that inhibit them from maximizing joint gains from trade. A rule is justified only if …

The Stock Market Reaction To Class Action Filings Post Pslra, Mark S. Klock

Mark S Klock

Using a substantially larger sample than has been used before, and a sample that includes the Great Financial Crisis and its ensuing recession, I investigate the stock market reaction to securities class action filings following the enactment of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act through the first quarter of 2012. I find that on average, even after adjusting for market downturns, there is a statistically significant negative abnormal return at the time of filing. There is also a statistically significant negative abnormal return during the weeks preceding the filing indicating that the market partially, but not fully, anticipates these filings. …

Sovereign Investing And Corporate Governance: Evidence And Policy, Paul Rose

Paul Rose

Discussions of corporate governance often focus solely on the attractiveness of firms to investors, but it is also true that firms seek out preferred investors. What, then, are the characteristics of an attractive investor? With nearly $6 trillion in assets, sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are increasingly important players in equity markets in the United States and abroad, and possess characteristics that firms prize: deep pockets, long-term (and for some, theoretically infinite) investment horizons, and potential network benefits that many other shareholders cannot offer. However, despite their economic power, their reach, and their general desirability as investors, SWFs are almost entirely …

Rise Of The Intercontinentalexchange And Implications Of Its Merger With Nyse Euronext, Latoya C. Brown

Latoya C. Brown, Esq.

This paper examines the impending merger between the IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) and NYSE Euronext against the backdrop of the current structure of the global financial services industry. The paper concludes that the merger embodies what the financial services industry is becoming and captures the model that will allow exchanges to remain competitive in today’s marketplace: mega-exchanges with broader asset classes and electronic platforms. As technology and globalization threaten their vitality, exchanges will need to continue reinventing and adapting. Increasingly over the last decade they have done so by merging and by moving, at least a part of, their operations on screen. …

The Regulation Of U.S. Money Market Funds: Lessons From Europe, Latoya C. Brown

Latoya C. Brown, Esq.

The recent financial crisis challenged long held perceptions of money market funds (“MMFs”) as stable and highly liquid instruments. Regulators in the US and in Europe now seek to impose additional rules on MMFs to avoid another significant failure as happened to the Reserve Fund. In the US, the debate is drawing even more media attention as question of which regulatory body - such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Treasury Department, and the Financial Stability Oversight Council – should lead the way has taken interesting twists and turns. This paper examines primary reform options being proposed in the …

Are Short Sellers Really The Enemy Of Efficient Securities Markets Or Are They Just Public Patsies?, Abel C. Ramirez Jr.

Abel C Ramirez Jr.

When the 2008 global financial crisis caused the stock market to drastically decline, short selling generated intense political and economic scrutiny that negatively characterized the practice as a predatory scheme. When the 2008 global financial crisis caused the stock market to drastically decline, short selling generated intense political and economic scrutiny that negatively characterized the practice as a predatory scheme. As a legitimate investment strategy, short selling is a method by which investors can capitalize on over-valued stocks that decline – this is NOT the same as “contributing” to the stock’s decline, which short selling’s detractors might believe.

Lessons From Single-Company Event Studies: The Importance Of Controlling For Company-Specific Events, Scott D. Hakala

Scott D Hakala

Single-company event studies are commonly employed in applied practice, such as in analyzing market efficiency, reliance, and damages in securities litigation. However, the presence of significant company-specific events among the observations used to estimate the market model results in significantly biased, overstated standard errors (a well-known omitted variables problem) and less reliable coefficient estimates in such studies. This is a frequently over-looked or neglected issue that renders the statistical inferences in single-company event studies employing using more traditional event study techniques biased and often unreliable. This paper demonstrates through simulation and actual examples that, even allowing for errors in implementation, …

Trust And The Reform Of Securities Regulation, Ronald J. Colombo

Ronald J Colombo

Trust is a critically important ingredient in the recipes for a successful economy and a well-functioning securities market. Due to scandals, ranging in nature from massive incompetence, to massive irresponsibility, to massive fraud, investor trust is in shorter supply today than in years past. This is troubling, and commentators, policy makers, and industry leaders have all recognized the need for trust's restoration.

As in times of similar crises, many have turned to law and regulation for the answers to our problems. The imposition of additional regulatory oversight, safeguards, and remedies, some advocate, can help resuscitate investor trust. These advocates have …

Re-Examining Investor Protection In The Eu And Us, John Ja Burke

John JA Burke

The year 2009 is a propitious time to evaluate systems of investor protection in financial markets as global bank losses exceed the 1 trillion mark and market losses equally exceed the 1 trillion mark. Prior to the Global Financial Crisis, the European Union enacted sweeping legislation to reform its system of investor protection. The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive [MiFID] is the regulatory equivalent of the deregulatory 1987 “Big Bang” that shaped the current European financial markets. It also applies to one of the world’s largest trading regions. This article examines select investor protection provisions of MiFID and their analogues …

The Effects Of Devaluation Of The Tenge Upon The Kazakhstan Economy, John Ja Burke

John JA Burke

This article examines the probable effect of the February 2009 devaluation of the Tenge on the Kazakhstan economy. Conventional wisdom holds that currency devaluation increases exports, protects domestic production, and preserves foreign exchange currency reserves. While the latter states the obvious, the causal relation between currency devaluation and increased export revenue and increased domestic production, though logically valid, requires the passage of time to measure. In the context of Kazakhstan, the question of devaluation and its effects also must be examined within the “Dutch Disease” model, as Kazakhstan is an oil dependent country. History teaches that devaluing the Tenge is …

The Tyranny Of The Multitude Is A Multiplied Tyranny: Is The United States Financial Regulatory Structure Undermining U.S. Competitiveness?, Elizabeth F. Brown

Elizabeth F Brown

This Article examines whether the U.S. regulatory structure undermined U.S. competitiveness with foreign financial markets, particularly the United Kingdom's markets.

Current Economic Issues In Securities Litigation, Scott D. Hakala

Scott D Hakala

This paper discusses the economic framework for determining economic loss in securities litigation and the then current case law. This includes discussions regarding assessing materiality and reliance, the use of event study analyses to identify loss causationg and the interaction of legal and economic principles.