90,097 research outputs found

    Social Hierarchies and the Formation of Customary Property Law in Pre-Industrial China and England

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    Comparative lawyers and economists have often assumed that traditional Chinese laws and customs reinforced the economic and political dominance of elites and, therefore, were unusually “despotic” towards the poor. Such assumptions are highly questionable: Quite the opposite, one of the most striking characteristics of Qing and Republican property institutions is that they often gave significantly greater economic protection to the poorer segments of society than comparable institutions in early modern England. In particular, Chinese property customs afforded much stronger powers of redemption to landowners who had pawned their land. In both societies, land-pawning occurred far more frequently among poorer households than richer ones, but Chinese customary law allowed debtors to indefinitely retain redemption rights over collateralized property, whereas English debtors would generally lose the property permanently if they failed to redeem within one year. This article argues that the comparatively “egalitarian” tendencies of Qing and Republican property institutions stemmed from the different ways Chinese and English rural communities allocated social status and rank. Hierarchical “Confucian” kinship networks dominated social and economic life in most Chinese villages. Within these networks, an individual’s status and rank depended, in large part, on his age and generational seniority, rather than personal wealth. This allowed many low-income households to enjoy status and rank quite disproportionate to their wealth. In comparison, substantial landed wealth was generally a prerequisite for high status in early modern England, effectively excluding lower-income households from positions of sociopolitical authority. Chinese smallholders possessed, therefore, significantly more social bargaining power, and were more capable of negotiating desirable property institutions. Paradoxically, the predominance of kinship hierarchies actually enhanced macro-level political and economic equality

    A different capitalism? : Guanxi-capitalism and the importance of family in modern China

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    The emergence of Capitalism is said to always lead to extreme changes in the structure of a society. This view implies that Capitalism is a universal and unique concept that needs an explicit institutional framework and should not discriminate between a German or US Capitalism. In contrast, this work argues that the ‘ideal type’ of Capitalism in a Weberian sense does not exist. It will be demonstrated that Capitalism is not a concept that shapes a uniform institutional framework within every society, constructing a specific economic system. Rather, depending on the institutional environment - family structures in particular - different forms of Capitalism arise. To exemplify this, the networking (Guanxi) Capitalism of contemporary China will be presented, where social institutions known from the past were reinforced for successful development. It will be argued that especially the change, destruction and creation of family and kinship structures are key factors that determined the further development and success of the Chinese economy and the type of Capitalism arising there. In contrast to Weber, it will be argued that Capitalism not necessarily leads to a process of destruction of traditional structures and to large-scale enterprises under rational, bureaucratic management, without leaving space for socio-cultural structures like family businesses. The flexible global production increasingly favours small business production over larger corporations. Small Chinese family firms are able to respond to rapidly changing market conditions and motivate maximum efforts for modest pay. The structure of the Chinese family proved to be very persistent over time and to be able to accommodate diverse economic and political environments while maintaining its core identity. This implies that Chinese Capitalism may be an entirely new economic system, based on Guanxi and the family

    Cultural Paradigms in Property Institutions

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    Do “cultural factors” substantively influence the creation and evolution of property institutions? For the past several decades, few legal scholars have answered affirmatively. Those inclined towards a law and economics methodology tend to see property institutions as the outcome of self-interested and utilitarian bargaining, and therefore often question the analytical usefulness of “culture.” The major emerging alternative, a progressive literature that emphasizes the social embeddedness of property institutions and individuals, is theoretically more accommodating of cultural analysis but has done very little of it. This Article develops a “cultural” theory of how property institutions are created and demonstrates that such a theory is particularly powerful in explaining large-scale institutional differences between societies. Empirically, it argues that, in the two centuries before large-scale industrialization, China, England, and Japan displayed systematic and fundamental differences in their regulation of property use and transfer. It further argues that these legal and institutional differences are best explained by certain aspects of social culture, specifically by the criteria for sociopolitical status distribution. Some of these criteria are distinctly “cultural” in the sense that they were probably generated by the widespread social internalization of moral values, rather than by utilitarian bargaining. Cultural paradigms can exist, therefore, in property institutions. If we assume, as conventional law and economics urges, that individuals generally approach property use and regulation through a self-interested and utilitarian mindset, their pursuit of personal utility can nonetheless be constrained or empowered by cultural norms of status distribution that determine their relative bargaining power

    The emerging legal framework for private sector development in Viet Nam's transitional economy

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    A major objective of Viet Nam's transition to a market economy has been to reactivate the private sector in a mixed economy. Several new laws have been introduced in the past five years to implement this policy and to create an enabling environment for the private sector. The author reviews some of the more important laws and regulations that affect Viet Nam's private sector activities, including laws on real property, intellectual property, companies, domestic investment, foreign investment, bankruptcy, contracts, and dispute resolution. Anti-monopoly law has not yet been introduced in Viet Nam. The issue of competition is addressed in the context of trade law, the relative roles of the state and private sector, and restrictions in company law. These areas all establish the foundation of a legal framework for a market economy. The author concludes that Viet Nam's legal framework, like China's, is still influenced by ideology, which causes problems in such areas as private ownership of real property and with such fundamental legal concepts as"due process of law."It is noted that the private sector is constrained by the lack of an independent judiciary, the absence of private land ownership, other uncertainties in property law that limit the develpoment of financial markets, and the inherent bias of the system in favor of the state sector (and collective ownership). Also noted is a law-abiding attitude, equally important to development has been slow to develop. The author goes on to point out that the foreign investment process is too complicated, and its company law too restrictive. A first priority should be to strreamline regulations, as well as liberalize trade policy and increase efforts in privatization of state enterprises. In this respect the author notes that export processing zones may be a useful interim instrument to attract foreign investment but should be phased out over time. More important in the long term is a good investment climate resting on a strong legal foundation.Legal Products,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Housing and Land,Municipal Financial Management,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Housing and Land,Legal Products,Municipal Financial Management

    The Chinese Diaspora and Philanthropy

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    This paper explores philanthropic links between the Chinese diaspora and the People's Republic of China. It draws on a wide range of sources and aims to sketch the range and nature of those links

    The Emergence of a Private Business Sector in China

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    This paper is part of a broader research project that aims to analyse the emerging private business sector in China by focusing on three topics.entrepreneurship;networks;social capital;evolutionary economics

    LEGAL TRANSFER AND THE LEGITIMATION OF LAW: IMPLICATIONS OF FARM FAMILY PROPERTY PROVISIONS IN ALBANIAN LEGISLATION

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    This paper discusses the relationship between transfer of laws from one country to another and legitimation of the law associated with the transfer. Drawing lessons from the legal transfer experience of Latin America in the 1960s, the paper attempts to ascertain what relevance, if any, legal transfer has in the context of the emerging market economies and democratic societies of the former communist countries of East Europe and the Soviet Union. It is argued that attempts at exporting laws have failed when little or no attempt is made to understand the processes of how law is legitimized within a specific country. The cultural orientation of a particular country or section of society at a particular point in time will determine how legal culture is formed and sustained and will thus affect the degree to which law is legitimized. Drawing on the theoretical discussions of section one, a short case study of law related to rural property rights in Albania is presented in section two.Legitimacy of governments, Law reform, Law reform -- Albania, Right of property -- Albania, Technical assistance -- Europe, Eastern, Technical assistance -- Albania, Land Economics/Use, Political Economy,

    Takings for Granted: The Convergence and Non-Convergence of Property Law in the People’s Republic of China and the United States

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      Föreliggande rapport Ă€r en granskning av det statliga betĂ€nkande som görs i samband med de hĂ€ndelser som Ă€ger rum vid EU-mötet i Göteborg Ă„r 2001. Syftet Ă€r att analysera kommittĂ©ns slutsatser och förslag utifrĂ„n en vetenskaplig studie av dessa hĂ€ndelser de s.k. Göteborgskravallerna som görs pĂ„ institutionen för beteendevetenskap vid Linköpings Universitetet. I likhet med internationell forskning visar Linköpingsstudien att kravaller kan ses som ett resultat av vĂ€xelverkande processer mellan polis och demonstranter vilka antingen kan leda till krig eller fred. Demonstranter utgör frĂ„n början inte en homogen "massa" utan bestĂ„r av mĂ„nga olika grupperingar av vilka s.k. postmoderna demonstranter urskiljer sig som en specifik kategori. Eftersom de skiljer sig frĂ„n traditionella demonstranter i olika avseenden riskerar de att kategoriseras och behandlas som tillhöriga en fientligt instĂ€lld provokatörsgrupp. I rapporten visas bl.a. att kommittĂ©n bygger sina förslag pĂ„ en onyanserad uppdelning av demonstrationer i en fredlig (modern) grupp och en fientlig provokatörsgrupp och dĂ€rmed missar frĂ„gan om hur man kan möta en ny rörelse av politiskt intresserade ungdomar inom ramen för ett demokratiskt samhĂ€lle
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