Book•
The Concept of Law
01 Jan 1961-
TL;DR: The Foundations of a Legal System as mentioned in this paper is an example of a legal system based on formalism and rule-scepticism, and it can be seen as a union of primary and secondary rules.
Abstract: Introduction 1. Persistent Questions 2. Laws, Commands, and Orders 3. The Variety of Laws 4. Sovereign and Subject 5. Law as the Union of Primary and Secondary Rules 6. The Foundations of a Legal System 7. Formalism and Rule-Scepticism 8. Justice and Morality 9. Laws and Morals 10. International Law Postscript
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TL;DR: In this article, a combined treatment of corporate finance and corporate governance is proposed, where both debt and equity are treated not mainly as alternative financial instruments, but rather as alternative governance structures.
Abstract: A combined treatment of corporate finance and corporate governance is herein proposed. Debt and equity are treated not mainly as alternative financial instruments, but rather as alternative governance structures. Debt governance works mainly out of rules, while equity governance allows much greater discretion. A project-financing approach is adopted. I argue that whether a project should be financed by debt or by equity depends principally on the characteristics of the assets. Transaction-cost reasoning supports the use of debt (rules) to finance redeployable assets, while non-redeployable assets are financed by equity (discretion). Experiences with leasing and leveraged buyouts are used to illustrate the argument. The article also compares and contrasts the transaction-cost approach with the agency approach to the study of economic organization.
2,366Â citations
TL;DR: Levitsky et al. as mentioned in this paper developed a framework for studying informal institutions and integrating them into comparative institutional analysis, based on a typology of four patterns of formal-informal institutional interaction: complementary, accommodating, competing, and substitutive.
Abstract: Mainstream comparative research on political institutions focuses primarily on formal rules. Yet in many contexts, informal institutions, ranging from bureaucratic and legislative norms to clientelism and patrimonialism, shape even more strongly political behavior and outcomes. Scholars who fail to consider these informal rules of the game risk missing many of the most important incentives and constraints that underlie political behavior. In this article we develop a framework for studying informal institutions and integrating them into comparative institutional analysis. The framework is based on a typology of four patterns of formal-informal institutional interaction: complementary, accommodating, competing, and substitutive. We then explore two issues largely ignored in the literature on this subject: the reasons and mechanisms behind the emergence of informal institutions, and the nature of their stability and change. Finally, we consider challenges in research on informal institutions, including issues of identification, measurement, and comparison.Gretchen Helmke's book Courts Under Constraints: Judges, Generals, and Presidents in Argentina, will be published by Cambridge University Press. Steven Levitsky is the author of Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America: Argentine Peronism in Comparative Perspective and is currently writing a book on competitive authoritarian regimes in the post–Cold War era. The authors thank the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University and the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame for generously sponsoring conferences on informal institutions. The authors also gratefully acknowledge comments from Jorge Dominguez, Anna Grzymala-Busse, Dennis Galvan, Goran Hyden, Jack Knight, Lisa Martin, Hillel Soifer, Benjamin Smith, Susan Stokes, Maria Victoria Murillo, and Kurt Weyland, as well as three anonymous reviewers and the editors of Perspectives on Politics.
2,220Â citations
TL;DR: The authors explores the sources and consequences of the paradox that the guardians of trust are themselves trustees, and discovers that the resulting collection of procedural norms, structural constraints, entry restrictions, policing mechanisms, social-control specialists, and insurance-like arrangements increases the opportunities for abuse while it encourages less acceptable trustee performance.
Abstract: How do societies control trust relationships that are not embedded in structures of personal relations? This paper discusses the guardians of impersonal trust and discovers that, in the quest for agent fidelity, they create new problems. The resulting collection of procedural norms, structural constraints, entry restrictions, policing mechanisms, social-control specialists, and insurance-like arrangements increases the opportunities for abuse while it encourages less acceptable trustee performance. Moreover, this system sometimes leads people to throw good "money" after bad; they protect trust and respond to its failures by conferring even more trust. The paper explores the sources and consequences of the paradox that the guardians of trust are themselves trustees.
1,694Â citations
TL;DR: In this article, what is legal pluralism? The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law: Vol. 18, No. 24, pp. 1-55.
Abstract: (1986). What is Legal Pluralism? The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law: Vol. 18, No. 24, pp. 1-55.
1,086Â citations