China’s Economic Development and Legal Reform: Financial Markets and Corporate Governance

Over the past two decades, China has been transformed from an underperforming state-planned economy into a market-oriented juggernaut. China recently surpassed France, Italy and Britain to become the world’s fourth largest economy. Despite its economic development, China is often derided by the financial and business communities for poor corporate governance, an inefficient financial sector, and lax enforcement of substantive law. How are we to reconcile China’s fantastic economic growth with its Rule of Law profile? How important is legal and financial sector reform to China’s past and present economic growth?