Author Description

How can lawmakers in one jurisdiction (like Hong Kong or any other) change corporate governance standards in another? Especially changing them in jurisdictions which have no interest in reform...where all corporate incentives encourage corruption, self-dealing and patronage? As the Panama Papers scandal shows, financial centres can provide stronger (or weaker) incentives for firms abroad to improve their own corporate governance - in effect encouraging reform offshore... and outside their own jurisdiction. This piece contributes to the debate about corporate governance reform - particularly in China - by showing how large financial centres' law can change corporate governance incentives from abroad. As China weaves itself into capital markets world-wide, regulators and investors will do well to call for the 'incentive-compatible' and 'self-enforcing' laws which help raise profits in China and other places with poor corporate governance rules of their own. We describe those rules and present the evidence - using Hong Kong and its effect on Chinese corporates - as a concrete/specific case illustrating the broader theories and approaches to policy.