ISCLH is pleased to share member and board director Madeleine Zelin‘s new publication from Law and History Review. “A Deep History of Chinese Shareholding” explores the cultural and political context that gave rise to the Chinese shareholding tradition in late imperial China. Shifting away from the traditional focus on legal transplantation, this article instead examines indigenous Chinese traditions offering businesspeople “a rich menu of options that could effectively substitute for many of the critical functions of the corporation.” This history of shareholding in late imperial China contributes to the growing research on impersonal investments and transactions in pre-industrial societies and expands scholarly understandings of diverse legal and economic institutions in the era of early capitalism.
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