An international corporate governance index

This chapter presents a comparative analysis of corporate governance regulatory systems and their development since 1990 in the United States and in 30 European countries. It introduces a proposed methodology that would help create detailed corporate governance indices which describe the primary features of capital market laws in these countries. These indices also determine how the law in each country deals with different potential agency conflicts between corporate constituencies. The analysis of regulatory provisions in the suggested framework provides a better understanding of how corporate law functions in a certain country, as well as which strategies the regulators use to achieve their goals.