Legal Origins: The Impact of Different Legal Systems on the Regulation of the Business Enterprise in the Asia-Pacific Region Project

Overview

This project is funded by the Australian Research Council Discovery project (ARC Project ID:DP1095060) and the central aim is to investigate whether the origin of a country's legal system (common law, civil law, and so on) gives rise to a distinctive regulatory style/legal environment which is more, or less, conducive to the efficient operation of the business enterprise.

The project investigates four inter-related questions:

1. Is a distinctive regulatory style (such as one inherently preferring market transactions over government intervention) evident in a country's corporate and labour law governing the business enterprise?
2. To what extent does the approach to regulating the business enterprise reflect a country's legal origin (LO)?
3. What factors, apart from LO, have influenced the development of corporate and labour law in countries included in the study?
4. Is there a link between long run trends in the legal environment and the economic development/performance of countries included in the study?

This project links nine countries (Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines and Taiwan) to the international debate about the relative effectiveness of different kinds of legal systems.

The research design involves the development of indicators of key dimensions of labour and corporate law that enable these issues to be investigated using both qualitative and quantitative analysis:

• the project will carry out a detailed historical analysis of the development of legal rules governing corporations and labour relations in individual countries, and assess the importance of different determinants in influencing the evolution of these laws, notably the significance of legal origins compared with other historically significant factors; and
• quantitative analysis will be used to investigate cross-national patterns of development in corporate and labour law, and to assess the extent to which economic growth is correlated with legal origin.

The proposed methodology builds on established approaches developed by leading LO scholars and their critics in the United States and United Kingdom.

Publications

Vivien Chen, Ian Ramsay and Michelle Welsh, 'Corporate Law Reform in Australia: An Analysis of the Influence of Ownership Structures and Corporate Failure' (2016) 44 Australian Business Law Review 18-34

Petra Mahy and Jonathan Sale, 'Classifying the Legal System of the Philippines: A Preliminary Analysis with Respect to Labor Law' (2015) 32 Philippine Journal of Labor and Industrial Relations 1-28

Peter Gahan, Ian Ramsay and Michelle Welsh, 'Worker and Shareholder Protection in Six Countries: A Longitudinal Analysis' (2014) 27 Australian Journal of Labour Law 216-232

Petra Mahy and Ian Ramsay, 'Legal Transplants and Adaptation in a Colonial Setting: Company Law in British Malaya' (2014) Singapore Journal of Legal Studies 123-150

Richard Mitchell, Petra Mahy and Peter Gahan, 'The Evolution of Labour Law in India: An Overview and Commentary on Regulatory Objectives and Development' (2014) 1 Asian Journal of Law and Society 413-453.

Richard Mitchell, Anthony O'Donnell, Ian Ramsay and Michelle Welsh, 'Shareholder Protection in Australia: Institutional Configurations and Regulatory Evolution' (2014) 38 Melbourne University Law Review 68-118.

Sean Cooney, Petra Mahy, Richard Mitchell and Peter Gahan, 'The Evolution of Labour Law in Three Asian Nations: An Introductory Comparative Study' (2014) 35 Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal.

Andrew Godwin, 'The Internal Logic Behind the Evolution of Company Law in China – Do Legal Origins Matter?' (2013) 14 Australian Journal of Asian Law 1-21.

Petra Mahy, 'The Evolution of Company Law in Indonesia: An Exploration of Legal Innovation and Stagnation' (2013) 61 American Journal of Comparative Law 377-432.

Helen Anderson, Michelle Welsh, Ian Ramsay and Peter Gahan. 'The Evolution of Shareholder and Creditor Protection in Australia: An International Comparison' (2012) 61 International and Comparative Law Quarterly171-207.

Helen Anderson, Michelle Welsh, Ian Ramsay and Peter Gahan, 'Shareholder and Creditor Protection in Australia: A Leximetric Analysis' (2012) 30 Company and Securities Law Journal 366-390.

Helen Anderson, Peter Gahan, Richard Mitchell, Ian Ramsay and Michelle Welsh. 'Investor and Worker Protection in Australia: A Longitudinal Analysis' (2012) 34 Sydney Law Review 573-585.

Peter Gahan, Richard Mitchell, Sean Cooney, Andrew Stewart and Brian Cooper. 'Economic Globalisation and Convergence in Labour Market Regulation: An Empirical Assessment' (2012) 60 American Journal of Comparative Law 703-742.

Petra Mahy, 'Evolution of the Corporate Form in Indonesia: An Exploration of Legal Innovation and Stagnation,' Workplace and Corporate Law Research Group, Department of Business Law and Taxation, Monash University, Working Paper no. 19, September 2012.

Richard Mitchell, Petra Mahy and Peter Gahan, 'The Evolution of Labour Law in India: An Overview and Commentary on Regulatory Objectives and Development', Workplace and Corporate Law Research Group, Department of Business Law and Taxation, Monash University, Working Paper no. 18, July 2012.

Gordon Anderson, Peter Gahan, Richard Mitchell and Andrew Stewart. 'The Evolution of Labour Law in New Zealand: A Comparative Study of New Zealand, Australia and Five Other Countries, 1970-2010' (2011) 33 Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal 137-170.

Helen Anderson, Ian Ramsay and Michelle Welsh, 'Shareholder and Creditor Protection Indices - Australia 1970-2010' SSRN, 2011.

Sean Cooney, Peter Gahan and Richard Mitchell. 'Legal Origins, Labour Law and the Regulation of Employment Relations,' in Adrian Wilkinson and Michael Barry (eds), Research Handbook of Comparative Employment Relations, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2011.

Richard Mitchell, Sean Cooney, Peter Gahan, Shelley Marshall and Andrew Stewart, The Labour Market Regulation Index, Australia 1970-2010: Variable Definitions and Description of the Data, SSRN, March 2010.

Richard Mitchell, Peter Gahan, Andrew Stewart, Sean Cooney and Shelley Marshall, 'The Evolution of Labour Law in Australia: Measuring the Change' (2010) 23 Australian Journal of Labour Law 61-93.

Sean Cooney, Peter Gahan, Shelley Marshall, Richard Mitchell and Andrew Stewart. Legal Origins and the Evolution of Australian Labour Law, 1970-2010, Research Report, Workplace and Corporate Law Research Group, Monash University, 2009.

Associated Publications

Richard Mitchell, Anthony O'Donnell, Shelley Marshall, Ian Ramsay and Meredith Jones, Law, Corporate Governance and Partnerships at Work: A Study of Australian Regulatory Style and Business Practice, Ashgate, London, 2011.

Shelley Marshall, Richard Mitchell and Anthony O'Donnell, 'Corporate Governance and Labour Law: Situating Australia's 'Regulatory Style'' (2009) 47 Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources 150-166.

Shelley Marshall, Richard Mitchell and Ian Ramsay (eds), Varieties of Capitalism, Corporate Governance and Employees, Melbourne University Publishing, Melbourne, 2008.

Meredith Jones and Richard Mitchell, 'Legal Origin, Legal Families and the Regulation of Labour in Australia,' in Shelley Marshall, Richard Mitchell and Ian Ramsay (eds) Varieties of Capitalism, Corporate Governance and Employees, Melbourne University Publishing, Melbourne, 2008.

Sean Cooney, Tim Lindsey, Richard Mitchell and Ying Zhu (eds), Law and Labour Market Regulation in East Asia, Routledge, London, 2002.