The End of History for Corporate Law Revisited

Fifty years ago, Michael Jensen and William Meckling published "The Theory of the Firm." Twenty-five years later, Henry Hansmann and Reinier Kraakman declared that history had ended for corporate law. A consensus, they wrote, had emerged that managers should act exclusively in the economic interests of shareholders. And, “[a]s the goal of shareholder primacy becomes second nature even to politicians, convergence in most aspects of the law and practice of corporate governance is sure to follow.”

On the fiftieth and twenty-fifth anniversaries of these landmark papers, the Center for Law and the Economy and the Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership will convene a day-long conference at Columbia Law School to consider whether history did in fact end for corporate governance, and if not, what might come next. The conference will include four paper presentations, discussants, and a panel on the future of the field. Lunch will be provided.