K2 - Regulation and Business LawReturn

The study focuses on evaluation of institutional quality in European Union countries and its possible impact on economic performance and competitiveness. The text stems from the theoretical framework of new institutional economics, especially historical and comparative institutionalism, and it bases on the concept of good governance. The source of the evaluation is the scheme of the World Bank Governance Matters, supplemented with research of other institutions working with individual institutional characteristics. Authors evaluate following characteristics - voice and accountability, political stability, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law and control of corruption, which together form aggregate indicator of institutional quality. Old member countries of European Union (EU-15) are classified into different models of capitalism according to their different institutional quality. Institutional changes in new member countries (EU-10, eventually EU-8) in period 1996-2004 illustrate both institutional adjustment of postcommunist countries and dynamics of these changes and their convergence to different types of capitalism.

After Czech voucher privatization many companies simply ignored the interests of their shareholders. The government has since increased the amount of regulation, but they have failed to establish significant investor confidence. This article offers some explanations of why their legal centric approach remains unlikely to create good corporate governance. Mandating that companies maximize shareholder value is easier said than done because it requires government to assess whether companies are making optimal business decisions. In former communist countries especially, government officials are ill suited to make such judgments because they lack the knowledge of how businesses should be properly run. Increased bureaucratic oversight in the Czech Republic has simply burdened markets without any noticeable positive results. This article discusses how good corporate governance can only be a byproduct of markets where managers compete for investors rather than something that can be created by law.

The paper deals with an issue of interrelation between law, economics and economy. For a long time, legal science has been interconnected with economics; nonetheless, it was economics which diverted from their mutual cohabitation. At the present time, it is the case of economists who applying their methodology, within law and economics movement in particular, started to bridge that lacuna and enrich legal science and lawmaking processes. This is of a crucial importance, since law shall be regarded as one of the factors which have a capacity to influence the economic output. Therefore, modern regulatory state must ensure a deeper and wider commitment to cost-benefit analysis and assess costs whilst excluding low benefits in legislative processes.