International Corporate Governance: Pedagogical and Practical Lessons

A critical component of this Blog (but one not fully plumbed) concerns the lessons that the United States can learn from overseas practices.  At the turn of the century, there was a tendency to look at US corporate governance as the pinnacle, as if it couldn't get much better.  Enron, Worldcom, and SOX largely put an end to that view.  As the Economist (not exactly known for its shareholder advocacy) wrote back in 2004:  "America is the world's most prominent democracy, and its most successful exponent of shareholder capitalism.  But when it comes to shareholder democracy, America has barely moved beyond the corporate equivalent of the rotten borough."

As part of the use of this Blog as a pedagogical device, students in my Comparative Corporate Law course wrote papers on the system of governance used in other countries.  As part of the assignment, they were required to write a brief post on the subject.  Over the next several days we will publish posts either written by students or based upon the information in their papers.  They provide some insight into corporate governance in other countries and contain lessons for the United States.