Developed country capital markets have devised a set of institutions and actors to help provide investors with timely and accurate information they need to make informed investment decisions. These actors have become known as "financial gatekeepers" and include auditors, financial analysts, and credit rating agencies.

Corporate financial reporting scandals in the United States and elsewhere in recent years, however, have called into question the sufficiency of the legal framework governing these gatekeepers. Policymakers have since responded by imposing a series of new obligations,...

New financial instruments--such as structured financial products and exchange-traded funds--and new financial institutions--including hedge funds and private-equity funds--present opportunities as well as policy and regulatory challenges in U.S. and Japanese financial markets. This book presents cutting-edge research from experts in academia and the financial industry on new instruments and new institutions while contrasting their developments in the different countries. The contributors highlight the innovative way in which Japanese financiers and government officials have learned from...

Can open source software--software that is usually available without charge and that individuals are free to modify--survive against the fierce competition of proprietary software, such as Microsoft Windows? Should the government intervene on its behalf? This book addresses a host of issues raised by the rapid growth of open source software, including government subsidies for research and development, government procurement policy, and patent and copyright policy. Contributors offer diverse perspectives on a phenomenon that has become a lightning rod for controversy in the field of...

When it came into force in 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) joined the economic futures of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, with systematic rules governing trade and investment, dispute resolution, and economic relations. However, economic integration among the three countries extends considerably beyond trade and investment. The NAFTA agreement takes a very narrow view of integration, barely addressing such vital issues as immigration policy and labor markets, the energy sector, environmental protection, and law enforcement. The governments of Canada, Mexico,...

With an ever-increasing number of liability lawsuits, are corporations electing to play it safe rather than risk the uncertainties accompanying innovation? In The Liability Maze experts address the issues surrounding safety and innovation and present the most detailed and comprehensive study to date on the actual impact of U.S. liability law. In recent decades it has been widely assumed that liability laws promote safety by significantly raising the price companies must pay for negligence, product defects and accidents. More recently, others have suggested that the broad and unpredictable...

The last decade has been both traumatic and revolutionary for the U.S. banking industry. In late 1990 and early 1991, the outlook for the banking industry and even the federal insurance fund that backs most of its deposits looked especially bleak. Several independent analysts, congressional watchdog agencies, and the federal government itself warned that the large number and size of bank failures would exhaust the resources of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation for resolving bank failures and paying off their depositors.

Amid extensive proposals for deposit insurance reform,...

The right to a jury trial is a fundamental feature of the American justice system. In recent years, however, aspects of the civil jury system have increasingly come under attack. Many question the ability of lay jurors to decide complex scientific and technical questions that often arise in civil suits. Others debate the high and rising costs of litigation, the staggering delay in resolving disputes, and the quality of justice. Federal and state courts, crowded with growing numbers of criminal cases, complain about handling difficult civil matters. As a result, the jury trial is...