Henry Manne is a giant in the field of law and economics - the school of thought that investigates the economic implications of various legal regimes. In field after field he has innovated in a way that has been enormously helpful for free-market scholars and especially Austrians. He has shown the absurdity of vast swaths of business and securities regulation, even to the point of causing a revolution of thought in the legal world.
In fact, Professor Manne attended the Austrian Scholars Conference in 2010 to participate in an entire panel tribute to his work, particularly in the theory of the firm.
The Mises Institute is pleased to make available this collected works series of his remarkably productive career.
This three-volume collection includes articles, reviews, and books from more than four decades, featuring Wall Street in Transition, which redefined the commonly held view of the corporate firm.
Volume 1, The Economics of Corporations and Corporate Law, includes Manne’s seminal writings on corporate law and his landmark blend of economics and law that is today accepted as a standard discipline, showing how Manne developed a comprehensive theory of the modern corporation that has provided a framework for legal, economic, and financial analysis of the corporate firm.
Volume 2, Insider Trading, uses Manne’s ground-breaking Insider Trading and the Stock Market as a framework for many of Manne’s innovative contributions to the field, as well as a fresh context for understanding the complex world of corporate law and securities regulation.
Volume 3, Liberty and Freedom in the Economic Ordering of Society, includes selections exploring Manne’s thoughts on corporate social responsibility, on the regulation of capital markets and securities offerings, especially as examined in Wall Street in Transition, on the role of the modern university, and on the relationship among law, regulation, and the free market.
Manne’s most auspicious work in corporate law began with the two pieces from the Columbia Law Review that appear in volume 1, says general editor Fred S. McChesney. Editor Henry Butler adds: “Henry Manne was an innovator challenging the very foundations of the current learning.” “The ‘Higher Criticism’ of the Modern Corporation” was Manne’s first attempt at refuting the all too common notion that corporations were merely devices that allowed managers to plunder shareholders. Manne saw that such a view of corporations was inconsistent with the basic economic assumption that individuals either understand or soon will understand the costs and benefits of their own situations and that they respond according to rational self-interest.
Fred S. McChesney is James B. Haddad Professor of Law at the Northwestern School of Law, focusing on business and antitrust law and their intersection with economic theory. He has been an associate director for policy and evaluation at the Federal Trade Commission.
3 Volumes, paperback, 2009, ISBN: 978-0-86597-764-8