The Stock Market, the Market for Corporate Control and the Theory of the Firm: Legal and Economic Perspectives and Implications for Public Policy

It is argued here that - contrary to current conventional wisdom - an active market for corporate control is not an essential ingredient of either company law reform or financial and economic development. The absence of such a market in coordinated market systems during their modern economic development was not an evolutionary deficit, but an effective and positive institutional arrangement. The economic and social costs associated with restructuring driven by hostile takeover bids, which are increasingly seen as prohibitive in the liberal market economies, would most likely harm the prospects for growth in developing and transition systems.