A compelling explanation of how the law shapes the distribution of wealth What is it that transforms a simple object, an idea, or a promise to pay into an asset that creates wealth? Katharina Pistor explains how, behind closed doors in the offices of private attorneys, capital is created-and why this little-known activity is one of the biggest reasons for the widening wealth gap between the holders of capital and everybody else. A powerful new way of thinking about one of the most pernicious problems of our time, The Code of Capital explores the various ways that debt, complex financial products, and other assets are selectively coded to protect and reproduce private wealth. This provocative book paints a troubling portrait of the pervasive global nature of the code, the people who shape it, and the governments that enforce it.

This book's principal aim is to critically address the institutional and substantive legal issues resulting from European enlargement, chiefly those relating to the legal foundations on which the enlarged Union is being built. The accession of new Member States creates the potential for a stronger and more powerful Europe. Realising this potential, however, will depend on the ability of the EU to develop functional and effective governance structures, both at the European level and at the level of the individual Member States. While the acquis communautaire will ensure that formal laws in the new Member States will be aligned with those of existing members, the question remains as to how effective institutions will be in implementing changes, and what effects the imposed changes will have on the legitimacy of the new legal framework. This book, containing the work of leading scholars in law and social sciences, examines the current and future legal framework for EU governance, and the role that new members will - or will not - play in the creation of that framework, paying particular attention to the specific challenges membership in the EU poses to the acceding states of Central and Eastern Europe. It is a book which will contribute to and influence debates over constitutionalism and legal harmonisation in the EU.

In this volume, Professor Deakin and Professor Pistor include those key articles which highlight the major contributions to, but also the inherent limits of, the legal origin literature. They consider the merits of this approach in the context of three fields of inquiry: the study of comparative law; the analysis of the relation between law and markets; and the understanding of the role of legal systems in social ordering. In their thought-provoking new introduction, the editors discuss the modifications to the original legal origins hypothesis over time and point the way for the future development of this influential, yet controversial, theory.

A compelling explanation of how the law shapes the distribution of wealth Capital is the defining feature of modern economies, yet most people have no idea where it actually comes from. What is it, exactly, that transforms mere wealth into an asset that automatically creates more wealth? The Code of Capital explains how capital is created behind closed doors in the offices of private attorneys, and why this little-known fact is one of the biggest reasons for the widening wealth gap between the holders of capital and everybody else. In this revealing book, Katharina Pistor argues that the law selectively "codes" certain assets, endowing them with the capacity to protect and produce private wealth. With the right legal coding, any object, claim, or idea can be turned into capital-and lawyers are the keepers of the code. Pistor describes how they pick and choose among different legal systems and legal devices for the ones that best serve their clients' needs, and how techniques that were first perfected centuries ago to code landholdings as capital are being used today to code stocks, bonds, ideas, and even expectations-assets that exist only in law. A powerful new way of thinking about one of the most pernicious problems of our time, The Code of Capital explores the different ways that debt, complex financial products, and other assets are coded to give financial advantage to their holders. This provocative book paints a troubling portrait of the pervasive global nature of the code, the people who shape it, and the governments that enforce it.

Recent high-profile corporate scandals--such as those involving Enron in the United States, Yukos in Russia, and Livedoor in Japan--demonstrate challenges to legal regulation of business practices in capitalist economies. Setting forth a new analytic framework for understanding these problems, "Law and Capitalism" examines such contemporary corporate governance crises in six countries, to shed light on the interaction of legal systems and economic change. This provocative book debunks the simplistic view of law's instrumental function for financial market development and economic growth.
Using comparative case studies that address the United States, China, Germany, Japan, Korea, and Russia, Curtis J. Milhaupt and Katharina Pistor argue that a disparate blend of legal and nonlegal mechanisms have supported economic growth around the world. Their groundbreaking findings show that law and markets evolve together in a "rolling relationship," and legal systems, including those of the most successful economies, therefore differ significantly in their organizational characteristics. Innovative and insightful, "Law and Capitalism" will change the way lawyers, economists, policy makers, and business leaders think about legal regulation in an increasingly global market for capital and corporate governance.

At one level of generality, multijuralism is the coexistence of two or more legal systems or sub-systems within a broader normative legal order to which they adhere, such as the existence of civil and common law systems within the EU. However, at a finer level of analysis multijuralism is a more widespread or common phenomenon and a more fluid reality than the civil law/common law distinction suggests. The papers in this study are therefore rooted in the latter frame of reference. They explore various types of multijural manifestations from the harmonizing potential of international treaties to indigenous law and the use of hard and soft pluralism. In addition, the authors consider the external events which are not part of the processes of multijural adjustment but which serve to influence these processes. Included among these important external events are European integration, the growing importance accorded to human rights, the international practice of law, the growth of the Internet, the globalization of markets and the flow of immigrants. This volume represents some of the most current thinking in the area of multijuralism and is essential reading for anyone interested in the coexistence of legal systems or sub-systems.

Essential resources do more than satisfy people's needs. They ensure a dignified existence. Since the competition for essential resources, particularly fresh water and arable land, is increasing and standard legal institutions, such as property rights and national border controls, are strangling access to resources for some while delivering prosperity to others, many are searching for ways to ensure their fair distribution. This book argues that the division of essential resources ought to be governed by a combination of Voice and Reflexivity. Voice is the ability of social groups to choose the rules by which they are governed. Reflexivity is the opportunity to question one's own preferences in light of competing claims and to accommodate them in a collective learning process. Having investigated the allocation of essential resources in places as varied as Cambodia, China, India, Kenya, Laos, Morocco, Nepal, the arid American West, and peri-urban areas in West Africa, the contributors to this volume largely concur with the viability of this policy and normative framework. Drawing on their expertise in law, environmental studies, anthropology, history, political science, and economics, they weigh the potential of Voice and Reflexivity against such alternatives as pricing mechanisms, property rights, common resource management, political might, or brute force.