Dissertation Research: Public Law and Private Power: The Comparative Political Economy of Corporate Governance in the U.S. and Germany

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This project examines how political and legal institutions shape corporate governance in the United States and Germany through the allocation of economic power and legal authority within the corporation. The research develops a political economic model of corporate governance as a tripartite structure comprised of company law, financial market regulation, and labor law, and compares the political, regulatory, and economic dynamics of change and stability in the American and German corporate governance regimes. The focus is on how the political and legal structures of these economies have responded to enormous changes in international financial markets, while accommodating different social values in their governance institutions. The project focuses on three central aspects of governance: (1) comparative regulatory politics; (2) labor and employee interests; and (3) the roles and interests of institutional investors. Detailed qualitative research will involve a set of case studies of governance in American and German corporations. This description and analysis of the "law in action" will fill a significant gap in the corporate governance literature, which has tended to emphasize formal economic and legal models. By focusing on how corporate actors shape and respond to legal and economic influences, the research places policy issues of governance reform in the political and institutional context in which they must be addressed.