Merritt Fox

Merritt B. Fox

  • Arthur Levitt Professor of Law
Education

J.D., Yale Law School, 1971
Ph.D., Yale University, 1980
B.A., Yale University, 1968

Areas of Specialty

Corporate and Securities Law
Law and Economics
International Finance
Capital Markets Regulation
Corporate Finance

Merritt Fox is an economist and legal scholar whose work in corporate and securities law is influential in setting the agenda for capital markets regulation. He also is co-director of the Center for Law and Economic Studies and co-director of the Program in the Law and Economics of Capital Markets.

His research interests include law and economics, securities disclosure regulation, international securities regulation, and comparative corporate law. Fox’s books include The New Stock Market: Law, Economics, and Policy (Columbia, 2019), Corporate Governance Lessons From Transition Economy Reforms (Princeton, 2006), and Finance and Industrial Performance in a Dynamic Economy (Columbia, 1987). Fox’s articles have appeared in numerous publications, including the Columbia Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, NYU Law Review, Michigan Law Review, and Business Lawyer.

As one of the directors of the Program in Law and Economics of Capital Markets, Fox leads the New Special Study designed to guide policymaking for capital markets. He brings a law and economics perspective to his courses on Corporate Finance and Securities Regulation. He also has a course on Capital Markets Regulation, which is offered jointly with Columbia Business School. 

Fox chairs Columbia’s university-wide Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and past chair of the business association’s section of the Association of American Law Schools.

Before joining Columbia Law School, in 2003, Fox taught at the University of Michigan Law School, where he also served as director of the Center for International and Comparative Law and the co-director for Corporate Governance Studies for the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan Business School. He has also taught at Indiana University Law School, Tilburg University, Fordham University Law School, and Yale College. 

Before entering academia, Fox practiced corporate and securities law with Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, focusing on international and domestic public offerings and international lending to Latin America.

Publications

  • “The Core Corporate Governance Puzzle: Contextualizing the Link to Performance,” (with Ronald Gilson and Darius Palia), 99 Boston University Law Review 1995, 2019 
  • The New Stock Market: Law, Economics, and Policy, (with Lawrence R. Glosten and Gabriel Rauterberg), Columbia University Press, 2019
  • Naked Open Market Manipulation and Its Effects, in Global Algorithmic Capital Markets, Walter Mattli, editor (with Lawrence R. Glosten and Gabriel Rauterberg), Oxford University Press, 2019.
  • “Informed Trading and Its Regulation,” (with Lawrence R. Glosten and Gabriel Rauterberg), 43 Journal of Corporate Law 817, 2018
  • “Personal Benefit Has No Place in Misappropriating Tipping Cases,” (with George Tepe), 71 Southern Methodist University Law Review 767, 2018
  • “Stock Market Manipulation and Its Regulation,” (with Lawrence R. Glosten and Gabriel Rauterberg), 35 Yale Journal on Regulation 67, 2018
  • “Stock Market Futurism,” (with Gabriel Rauterberg), 42 Journal of Corporate Law 793, 2017
  • “Evaluating Trading Practices and Their Regulation,” (with Kevin Haeberle), 42 Journal of Corporate Law 887, 2017
  • “Economic Crises and the Integration of Law and Finance: The Impact of Volatility Spikes,” (with Edward G. Fox and Ronald J. Gilson), 116 Columbia Law Review 325, 2016
  • “Regulating the Offering of Truly New Securities: First Principles,” 66 Duke Law Journal, 2016
  • “MiFID II and Equity Trading Regulation: A U.S. View,” (Danny Busch and Guido Ferrarini, eds.), Regulation of EU Financial Markets: MiFID II, Oxford University Press, forthcoming, 2016
  • “The Rise of Foreign Ownership and Corporate Governance,” (Jeffrey Gordon and Wolf-Georg Ringe, eds.), Oxford Handbook of Corporate Law and Governance, Oxford University Press, forthcoming, 2016
  • “The New Stock Market: Sense and Nonsense,” (with Lawrence R. Glosten and Gabriel Rauterberg), 65 Duke Law Journal 191, 2015
  • “Halliburton II: It All Depends on What Defendants Need to Show to Establish No Impact on Price,” 70 The Business Lawyer 437, 2015
  • “Halliburton II: What It’s All About,” 1 Journal of Financial Regulation 135, 2015
  • “Ongoing Issues in Russian Corporate Governance,” 52 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 435, 2014
  • “Securities Class Actions Against Foreign Issuers,” 64 Stanford Law Review 1173, 2012
  • “Promoting Innovation: The Law of Publicly Traded Corporations,” 5 Capitalism and Society 1, 2010, Issue 3
  • “Short Selling and the News: A Preliminary Report on an Empirical Study,” (with Lawrence Glosten and Paul Tetlock), 54 N.Y.L.S. Rev. 645, 2010
  • “Civil Liability and Mandatory Disclosure,” 109 Columbia Law Review 237, 2009
  • “Why Civil Liability for Disclosure Violations When Issuers Do Not Trade,” 2009 Wisconsin Law Review 299, 2009
  • “Regulation and the Competitiveness of U.S. Securities Markets,” Sesquicentennial Essays of the Faculty of Columbia Law School, 2008
  • “Gatekeeper Failures: Why Important, What to Do,” 106 Michigan Law Review 1089, 2008

Honors and Awards

Doctorate of Laws, University of Buenos Aires

December 2019

Activities and Affiliations

  • Chair, Business Associations Section, American Association of Law Schools, 1997 to 1998
  • Research Associate, European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)
  • Member, American Economics Association
  • Member, American Society of International Law
  • Council on Foreign Relations (Term Member, 1975–1980, Regular Member, 2004–present)
  • Member, American Law and Economics Association
  • Member, The American Law Institute
  • Member, New York City Bar Association, Securities Litigation Committee
  • Member, Center on Capitalism and Society, Columbia University

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