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Law, Trust and Institutional Change in China: Evidence from Qualitative Fieldwork

Chen, Ding; Deakin, Simon; Siems, Mathias; Wang, Boya

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Authors

Ding Chen

Simon Deakin

Mathias Siems

Boya Wang



Abstract

China’s rapid growth in the absence of autonomous legal institutions of the kind found in the west appears to pose a problem for theories which stress the importance of law for economic development. In this article we draw on interviews with lawyers, entrepreneurs and financial market actors to illustrate the complexity of attitudes to contract, corporate and financial law and economic growth in contemporary China. In the case of product markets, we find that business relations are increasingly characterised by a mix of trust-based transacting and legal formality. Financial markets are less like their western counterparts, thanks to the preponderant role of government in asset allocation, and a lack of transparency in market pricing. Overall, China’s experience does not suggest that law is irrelevant or unrelated to growth, but that legal and economic institutions coevolve in the transition from central planning to a market economy.

Citation

Chen, D., Deakin, S., Siems, M., & Wang, B. (2017). Law, Trust and Institutional Change in China: Evidence from Qualitative Fieldwork. Journal of Corporate Law Studies, 17(2), 257-290. https://doi.org/10.1080/14735970.2016.1270252

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Nov 29, 2016
Online Publication Date Jan 11, 2017
Publication Date Jan 11, 2017
Deposit Date Feb 2, 2017
Publicly Available Date Feb 10, 2017
Journal Journal of Corporate Law Studies
Print ISSN 1473-5970
Electronic ISSN 1757-8426
Publisher Taylor and Francis Group
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 17
Issue 2
Pages 257-290
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/14735970.2016.1270252
Related Public URLs https://ssrn.com/abstract=2898174

Files

Published Journal Article (Advance online version) (2.7 Mb)
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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
Advance online version © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited.





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