CEF.UP - Advanced Course | 'Law and Finance: the regulation of financial markets'

12, 13 and 14 September 2023 | 9:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. | Room 305

“Law and Finance: the regulation of financial markets”

Florencio Lopez de Silanes – SKEMA Business School (France)

The focus of this series of lectures is what is now commonly called “Law and Finance.” The financial crisis and the various waves of financial scandals in Europe, the U.S., and elsewhere have alerted investors about the lack of efficient mechanisms of corporate control across countries. Indeed, corporate governance is alluded more and more as one of the fundamental reasons for the recent state of global markets’ volatility. Overall, the course analyzes the contribution of financial contracting in mitigating opportunistic behavior and the role of the regulation of capital markets and financial intermediaries in capital raising and financial stability across countries. The course builds up on the two main imperfections in financial markets: asymmetric information and moral hazard or agency theory. With these tools, we analyze the role of differences in institutional characteristics, shareholder protection, and creditor rights across countries as determinants of the functioning of capital markets, how corporations are owned and valued, and how firms raise capital and give it back to investors. We also apply this framework to analyze the potential “dark side” of financial institutions providing a better understanding of why banks are so fragile and often bankrupt.

Main Topics:
The New Approach to Law and Finance: Comparative Law and Legal Origins;
Access to Finance: The limits of the M&M Theorem, Agency Theory and Corporate Governance;
Ownership Structures around the World;
Corporate Law, Securities Laws, Bankruptcy Laws and Capital Markets;
Bankruptcy and Security Design: Protection of Banks and other Creditors;
The Dark Side of Financial Institutions: The Governance of Banks and Financial Regulation.


This is a in-person Course, register here no later than Sunday 10th, at 11:59 pm.


“Cef.up is financed by Portuguese public funds through FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, I.P., in the framework of the project with reference UIDB/04105/2020”