商业法对经济发展的影响

Selected Topics in business law and economics

Sharon Belenzon

杜克大学富卡商学院终身教授

1)美国国家经济研究局高级研究员

2)战略管理期刊、管理科学杂志副主编

3)英国社会科学院“企业的未来”项目联合创始人

4)曾获美国国家科学院研究奖学金

5)伦敦政治经济学院博士

6)牛津大学纳菲尔德学院博士后

课题背景
2011年，中国的GDP超越日本，跃居世界第二位；中国制造业超越美国，成为世界制造业第一大国。中国企业在规模上的迅速突破，既是过去三十多年中国经济高速发展的结果，也反映出国际经济格局的结构性变化。对比中美两国企业可以发现：中国经济的增长集中在金属冶金、房地产、工程建设等方面；中国企业的销售收益率和净资产率持续下行；在生物技术、制药、通信技术等行业，中国企业创新溢出率明显低于美国。 在这样的背景下，国家该如何从法律法规的角度出发，为公司创新和经济增长提供政策支持和社会动力，是值得思考和探究的问题。 本课程侧重于商业（公司）法对公司的影响，目的在于阐明法律环境如何影响商业运行。

课题内容
本课程讲座部分将覆盖三大模块：

一、从法律视角看企业：公司法如何塑造并界定公司内部组织结构，限定公司行为和战略；

二、变化中的美国创新生态环境：国家实体和政府行为对公司表现以及经济增长的影响；

三、知识产权：专利法以及它对创新的影响，专利（知识产权）法能否为技术革新提供导向？

课程以研讨会、学生参与等形式展开。学生需阅读指定论文和资料，并在课堂上分享自己的观点和参与既定问题的讨论。大部分的论文可以从www.jstor.org和www.ssrn.com上检索到，对于难度较大的论文，教授会辅以简要梗概和引导。

学生需根据指定材料和自选材料完成一篇15-20页（含附录）的论文。

适合人群
 对经济学、商业战略、商务政策/法务制定方向感兴趣的高中生和本科生
 建议提前掌握一般经济学和基础统计学知识
 课程涉及较多专业论文，学生需要具备较高水平的英文能力

教授介绍

Sharon Belenzon

杜克大学富卡商学院终身教授

1)美国国家经济研究局高级研究员

2)战略管理期刊、管理科学杂志副主编

3)英国社会科学院“企业的未来”项目联合创始人

4)曾获美国国家科学院研究奖学金

5)伦敦政治经济学院博士

6)牛津大学纳菲尔德学院博士后

任职学校
杜克大学（Duke University）是一所位于美国北卡罗来纳州达勒姆的一所私立男女合校研究型大学。杜克大学为美国 最顶尖的学府之一，有“南方哈佛”之称（盖因在亚特兰大的埃默里大学及在纳什维尔的范德比尔特大学也声称自己为 南方哈佛），其 2016 年录取率为 9%。虽然目前的学校创建于 1924 年，但杜克大学的历史实际上可以回溯到 1859 年 时在今日现址创立的三一学院或更早的布朗学校（Brown's Schoolhouse 于 1838 年时创立于同州的兰道夫县）。截止 2017 年，共有 12 位校友及教职工曾获得诺贝尔奖。杜克大学在学术与体育上都有优秀表现。其福夸商学院排行 为全美商学院前十名；根据彭博商业周刊公布的 2014 年商学院最佳全日制 MBA 项目排名，杜克大学福夸商学院超过 哈佛大学商学院，芝加哥大学布斯商学院等，位居全美首位。

课程安排与收获
• 8周在线小组科研（总课时78小时）
• 网申推荐信
• 学术评估报告
• 项目成绩单
• 论文成果

课纲

Selected Topics in business law and economics October,   2020

Sharon Belenzon, Professor Fuqua School of Business Duke   University sharon.belenzon@duke.edu

+1 919-660-7845

Course Description: This course focuses on the effect of business law on corporate structure and innovation. The objective of the course is to illuminate main conversations in business scholarship and economics literature on how the legal environment affects the structure of corporations and their innovation outcomes.

The class will be run as a seminar with lectures and active student participation. You are expected to have done the readings and come prepared to discuss them in class. I shall guide the discussions through own lecturing on through student presentations on selected research papers. Many of the readings below are available from www.jstor.org. The working papers are available from www.ssrn.com. For some of the papers, a digestible summary would be provided.

Grading: Class participation counts for 25%, the final exam counts for 25% and the research project counts for 50%.

Research project: The research paper should include up to 15 double-space pages, excluding an up to 20 pages appendix. The research paper should answer a specific research question and use data from China with basic analysis that can vary from descriptive statistics (such as trends and industry heterogeneity) to basic regressions. The research paper needs to build on the literature covered in class and cite relevant papers. Each research project must develop the conceptual framework that guides its analysis based on what is covered in class.

Students shall select their research project from the following broad options:

1.    How Chinese corporate law drives corporate structure and what consequences does it have for innovation

2.    The legal determinants of the private returns to R&D

3.    The law and the Chinese innovation ecosystem:  how Chinese institutions shape the interplay between corporations, startups and universities

4.    What is the effect of intellectual property law on Chinese innovation?

COURSE OUTLINE AND READINGS:

Module 1: The legal view of the firm: how corporate law shapes internal struc- ture and economic performance

1.    Belenzon, S., Hashai, N., Patacconi, A. 2019. The architecture of attention: Group structure and subsidiary autonomy, Strategic Management Journal 40(10): 1610-1643.

2.    Belenzon, S., Lee, H., Patacconi, A. 2018. Towards a legal theory of the firm: The effects of limited liability laws on asset partitioning, decentralization and organizational growth, NBER Working Paper 24720.

Key questions: how the law affect how firms organize their economic activities and what consequences this has for strategy and economic performance.

Module 2: The (changing) structure of the American innovation ecosystem – the role of country institutions

1.    Arora, A., Belenzon, S., Patacconi, A. 2018. The decline of science in corporate R&D. Strategic Management Journal, 39(1): 3-32

2.    Arora, A., Belenzon, S., Patacconi, A., Suh, J. 2019. The Changing Structure of Amer- ican Innovation: Some Cautionary Remarks for Economic Growth” NBER Working Paper No. 25893.

3.    Autor, D., Dorn, D. Katz, L.F., Patterson, C., Van Reenen, J. 2017. The Fall of the Labor Share and the Rise of Superstar Firms. NBER Working Paper No. 23396.

4.    Bloom, N., Draca, M., Van Reenen, J. 2016. Trade Induced Technical Change? The Impact of Chinese Imports on Innovation, IT and Productivity. The Review of Eco- nomic Studies, 83 (1): 87–117.

5.    Dorn, D., Hanson, G.H., Pisano, G., Shu, P. 2016. Foreign competition and domestic innovation: Evidence from US patents. NBER Working Paper No. w22879.

6.    Guti´errez, G., Philippon, T. 2019, May. Fading Stars. AEA Papers and Proceedings, 109: 312-16.

Key questions: How has the American innovation ecosystem been changing in the past sev- eral decades and what are the implications to firm performance and economic growth? What is the role of country institutions, such as the patent system and anti-trust laws, in driving such change?

Module 3: Intellectual property rights – patent law and its effect on innovation

1. Moser, Petra. 2005. “How Do Patent Laws Influence Innovation? Evidence from Nineteenth-Century World’s Fairs.” American Economic Review 95 (4): 1214–1236.*

1. Murray and Stern. 2007. “Do formal intellectual property rights hinder the free flow of scientific knowledge? An empirical test of the anti-commons hypothesis.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. 63(4) 648-687.

1. Watzinger, M., Fackler, T.A., Nagler, M. and Schnitzer, M., 2017. “How antitrust enforcement can spur innovation: Bell Labs and the 1956 Consent Decree.”

1. Williams, H. L. (2013). “Intellectual property rights and innovation: Evidence from the human genome”. Journal of Political Economy, 121(1), 1-27.*

1. Comino, S., Galasso, A. and Graziano, C. 2017. “The diffusion of new institutions: Evidence from Renaissance Venice’s patent system”, NBER Working Paper 24118.

1. Galasso, A. and Schankerman, M. 2015. “Patents and Cumulative Innovation: Causal Evidence from the Courts” Quarterly Journal of Economics 130: 317-369.*

Key questions: How patents affect the rate and direction of technical change?