Economic Analysis of Law in China

This book comprises contributions on recent developments in China from a law and economics perspective. For the first time Chinese and European scholars jointly discuss some important attributes of China's legal and economic system, and some recent problems, from this particular viewpoint. The authors apply an economic analysis of law not only to general characteristics of China's social order, such as the specific type of federal competition, the efficiency of taxation and regulation, and the importance of informal institutions (Guanxi), but also to distinct areas of Chinese law such as competition policy, professional regulation, corporate governance and capital markets, oil pollution, intellectual property rights and internet games. The contributors discuss to what extent the law and economic models that have so far been employed within the context of developed countries can be applied to a country like China as well. The European scholars use law and economics in order to determine what China could learn from the European experience. The Chinese scholars discuss whether law and economics can be of any use in analysing the particular features of the Chinese legal system today. Economic Analysis of Law in China will appeal to lawyers, economists and social scientists in China interested in developing legal institutions with an eye on economic efficiency. Scholars generally interested in the economic analysis of law, as well as in the comparison and transition of economic systems, will also find much in this book that will be of interest to them.