Description

This seminar presents three models analyzing the determinants of corporate governance reform, the international diffusion of legal innovations in corporate governance, and the convergence of corporate governance systems. The results show that regulatory reform is positively associated with changes to international benchmark models of good governance, negatively associated with concentrated ownership structure and civil-law legal traditions, and not associated with the preponderance of issuer or investor representatives on the drafting committees. We also find that the probability of adopting a particular corporate governance rule is positively related to the number of countries having adopted a similar rule. In spite of such cross-border legal learning, convergence of corporate governance regimes, understood formally as the lower variance of legal variables over time, has not yet occurred in Europe.

About The Speaker

Carsten is an Associate Professor of Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research focuses on corporate governance, securities regulation, and law and economics. He studied law and economics at Humboldt University Berlin, the University of Minnesota, and the University of London. He worked or held visiting positions at a number of universities in Europe and the United States, including King’s College London, the University of California at Berkeley, and Duke University. Carsten is also admitted to the bar in Germany, regularly advises a German law firm on matters of corporate law and corporate insolvency, and has prepared reports on corporate governance and financial regulation for the European Commission and the European Parliament.