Bankrupt

The Asian Financial Crisis dramatically illustrated the vulnerability of emerging markets. In response, international organizations insisted that legal reforms, including corporate bankruptcy law, could protect markets from financial instability. Sitting at the nexus between the legal system and markets, bankruptcy law ensures that the casualties of capitalism are either liquidated or restructured. Liquidation terminates uncompetitive firms, but reorganization can save a business and benefit employees, managers, investors, and politicians. Halliday and Carruthers show how global actors developed norms for bankruptcy law and present the responses from national policymakers to these norms in China, Indonesia, and South Korea.Based on participant observation of global normmaking, this book traces the quest of international organizations to craft a 'gold standard' for bankruptcy law. It shows how national policymakers contested and negotiated laws under global influences. The first study of its kind, the book offers a theory of legal change - the recursivity of law - to explain why global - local tensions produce implementation gaps. Through its analysis of globalization, this book has lessons for international organizations and for developing and transition economies the world over.