The Need for Competition in International Securities Regulation

This paper advocates opening up international securities regulation to greater regulatory competition than the scant competition that exists at present. After sketching the contours of an international regime of regulatory competition in securities laws and the reasons why such competition is desirable, the paper provides a detailed response to objections that have been raised to a proposal for a competitive securities regime that was principally focused on the United States, objections that would accordingly also be raised against this paper's proposal. These include whether the U.S. securities regime is directed at mitigating problems regarding disclosure of interfirm externalities and whether international competition will result in a regulatory race to the lowest level of disclosure. Because the analysis in support of regulatory competition in securities law draws upon the learning regarding competition across U.S. states over the production of corporate law, which has been successful in creating a regime that, on balance, benefits shareholders, the paper concludes by demonstrating that recent critiques of the efficacy of statecharter competition are unfounded.