Regulating Large International Firms

Valpy FitzGerald

QEH Working Papers from Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford

Abstract: This paper explores the existing arrangements for multilateral regulation of large firms, and makes the case for balancing strengthened global corporate property rights with more explicit and enforceable social obligations. In a democratic market-based society, investors have legally enforceable rights but must also obey laws designed to protect labour, consumers and the environment, while competition regulations are designed to counter market power and business taxes ensure the provision of public goods. Strengthened multilateral co-operation in three related areas - investment, tax and competition - is under way. Although progress is slow and contested, the distinct interests of host and home countries are clear and the 'development dimension' broadly recognised. In marked contrast, corporate conduct on labour and environmental issues is still almost exclusively regulated at the national level. Moreover, external standards of international corporate responsibility in developing countries are set by voluntary initiatives at best, with market incentives rather than legal requirements constituting the basis for compliance. A better approach would be a multilateral definition of the obligations of international firms that is explicitly linked to the guarantee of property rights. These obligations might reasonably include international taxation, competition rules and stakeholder issues such as employment conditions and environmental protection. The ongoing process of regional integration - particularly in Europe - could present an additional opportunity for such a definition.

New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-fin
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://workingpapers.qeh.ox.ac.uk/RePEc/qeh/qehwps/qehwps64.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 500 Can't connect to workingpapers.qeh.ox.ac.uk:80 (A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond.)

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

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:qeh:qehwps:qehwps64

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in QEH Working Papers from Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford Queen Elizabeth House 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford, OX1 3TB United Kingdom. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by IT Support ().