Limited Liability in California 1928–31: It’s the Lawyers

Mark I. Weinstein

American Law and Economics Review, 2005, vol. 7, issue 2, pages 439-483

Abstract: Only in 1931 was the California Corporate Code revised to provide for limited liability. In earlier work I found that this move had no detectable effect on shareholder wealth. In this article I examine the potential beneficiaries of this change with an eye toward finding out who wanted this change. Using this historical example we can shed light on a number of issues including: (1) the economic impact of limited liability; (2) the role of lawyers, especially lawyers of high prestige, in determining the law; and (3) the competition or lack thereof among states in designing their corporate codes. Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/aler/ahi013 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.oup.co.uk/journals

Access Statistics for this article

American Law and Economics Review is edited by Hon. Richard A. Posner

More articles in American Law and Economics Review from Oxford University Press
Address: Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK
Series data maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().