Common law

Abstract: This paper examines legal rules covering protection of corporate shareholders and creditors, the origin of these rules, and the quality of their enforcement in 49 countries. The results show that common law countries generally have the best, and French civil law countries the worst, legal protections of investors, with German and Scandinavian civil law countries located in the middle. We also find that concentration of ownership of shares in the largest public companies is negatively related to investor protections, consistent with the hypothesis that small, diversified shareholders are unlikely to be important in countries that fail to protect their rights.

Abstract: Using a sample of 49 countries, we show that countries with poorer investor protections, measured by both the character of legal rules and the quality of law enforcement, have smaller and narrower capital markets. These findings apply to both equity and debt markets. In particular, French civil law countries have both the weakest investor protections and the least developed capital markets, especially as compared to common law countries.

Abstract: Economic Analysis of Law, Eighth Edition, written by the pioneer in law and economics analysis, Richard A. Posner, remains the classic text in its field. This lucid, comprehensive casebook covers every aspect of the economic analysis of the law, including the common law, public regulation of the market, business organizations and financial markets, the distribution of income and wealth, the legal process, and the Constitution and the federal system. The Eighth Edition has been substantially revised to take into account current events, including the continuing economic crisis, the re-emerging field of organization economics, and recent work by the author and others on judicial behavior. The this preeminent casebook continues to offer Coverage of the legal-economic perspective on all key areas, from common law to the constitution. Accessible, lucid, and user-friendly writing and organization: Non

Abstract: International differences in the demand for accounting income predictably affect the way it incorporates economic income (change in market value) over time. We characterize the `shareholder’ and `stakeholder’ corporate governance models of common and code law countries respectively as resolving information asymmetry by public disclosure and private communication. Also, code law directly links accounting income to current payouts (to employees, managers, shareholders and governments). Consequently, code law accounting income is less timely, particularly in incorporating economic losses. Regulation, taxation and litigation cause variation among common law countries. The results have implications for security analysts, standard-setters, regulators, and corporate governance.

Abstract: hat the individual shall have full protection in person and in property is a principle as old as the common law; but it has been found necessary from time to time to define anew the exact nature and extent of such protection. Political, social, and economic changes entail the recognition of new rights, and the common law, in its eternal youth, grows to meet the new demands of society. Thus, in very early times, the law gave a remedy only for physical interference with life and property, for trespasses vi et armis. Then the "right to life" served only to protect the subject from battery in its various forms; liberty meant freedom from actual restraint; and the right to property secured to the individual his lands and his cattle. Later, there came a recognition of man's spiritual nature, of his feelings and his intellect. Gradually the scope of these legal rights broadened; and now the right to life has come to mean the right to enjoy life, -the right to be let alone; the right to liberty secures the exercise of extensive civil privileges; and the term "property" has grown to comprise every form of possession -intangible, as well as tangible.