The 1980s and 1990s have witnessed the emergence of globalized markets accompanied by an uneven process of national and international deregulation and re-regulation. The combined activities of transnational corporations in manufacturing industries (moving towards the global factory) and the newly privatized businesses in the energy, telecommunications and transportation sectors have fuelled an unprecedented growth in global markets and international business networks. The unexpected but now well established development of capitalism in eastern Europe and the boom in China's special economic zones have added still further to the opportunities and risks inherent in the rapidly developing global economy. For lawyers, economists, and political scientists one of the most significant aspects of the emergence of global markets is the question of regulation: how to regulate market access, product safety, consumer protection laws, financial services, probity and capital adequacy as well as anti-trust and competition laws and policies. Businesses complain that regulatory requirements frequently hinder the development of new markets. At the same time greater public awareness and concern, especially over other global issues such as environment protection, have raised the cost implications of regulatory requirements, sometimes astronmically. The essays in this volume attempt to address the success of efforts in the European Community, the US and elsewhere in the world to regulate in such a way as to accomodate both the interests of business and the wider interests of the public. The volume is divided into several sections, the first which deals with the globalization of regulatory processes. Other sections examine regulatory competition in the field of company law, self-regulation and competition in US corporate law; regulatory regimes in the European Union and the issue of regulatory coordination affecting economic and social insterests. This is an original and wide-ranging collection of essays which will attract a broad readership both in the US and Europe.

This volume brings together lawyers, accountants, sociologists and economists to explore some central themes of the legal and organizational accountability of the public corporation. The papers offer the first sustained attempt to transcend the institutionalist and contractarian visions which, during the 1980s, became the mainstream perspectives in corporate analysis.