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"DISPUTE RESOLUTION IN BEIJING HUTONGS"
Guo Haini and Bradley Klein: Examined dispute resolution
mechanisms and informal cooperation regimes among Beijing hutong residents.
The aim of the project was to understand the relevance and irrelevance
of formal law in governing everyday relations among hutong residents,
the extent to which residents are able to cooperate outside the confines
of formal law, and the conditions under which cooperation typically breaks
down such that recourse to formal legal solutions becomes necessary. The
hypothesis of the project is that the lives of hutong residents are structured
by an elaborate system of informal social norms that are universally understood
but largely unrelated to formal law.
"PENSION REFORM IN CHINA"
Hao Qian: Performed field research for six weeks on the
current pension reform in China with a two-pronged approach. One portion
of the research investigated policy considerations of the central government,
which will shape further reform efforts. Such important issues include
choice of reform model, unification vs. provincial diversification and
fund management. The other part of the research is on some of the successful
local reform measures taken in Shanghai and Shandong. An analysis will
be made based on the research to provide comments, evaluation and suggestions
on the pension reform to date.
"JUDICIAL REVIEW OF STATUTES"
Peng Yanan: Researched the Chinese judicial review of statutes.
Without explicit jurisdiction, Chinese courts have developed a ex facto
power to set aside certain levels of low-ranked law in specific cases.
The institution of Chinese courts plays an interesting role in Chinese
legal system. An array of questions were considered for this project.
How does it work? To what extent do the courts subject statutes to judicial
review? What are the significance and limits of this power? Research of
this practice, its weakness, and judges' incentives will enhance our understanding
of Chinese judicial and political culture and may contribute to improving
Chinese judicial review system.
"SHANGHAI COURT LITIGATION"
Tang Yingmao: Conducted two months of fieldwork in several
courts in Shanghai including Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate Court, Shanghai
No. 2 Intermediate Court and Shanghai Pu Dong New Area District Court
under the auspices of the Coca-Cola World Fund at Yale and The China Law
Center at Yale Law School. The focus of the fieldwork is to research the
judicial role by examining bank loan litigations, which litigations have
accounted for a considerable percentage of court caseloads since late
1980s. The fieldwork research is part of a broader project which attempts
to build a theory to value the judicial role in the process of transition
from a planned economy to a more market oriented one. The fieldwork was
conducted by a combination of interviewing judges from different divisions
of courts, researching court opinions, case files and other court documents,
and attending a workshop and conference sponsored by courts in Shanghai.
"IMPROVING CORPORATE GOVERNANCE OF CHINA'S
STATE-OWNED ENTERPRISES"
Xu Kaichen: This project on Corporate Governance was funded
by the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization with guidance and consultation
from The China Law Center. Improvements in the corporate governance of
China's state owned enterprises were examined, as well as the situation
that majority shareholders are handicapped by serious agency problems.
Unlike an individual, a family, or a holding corporation, the equity interest
of the states' shares is not vested in any natural person. The government
agents who vote the state's share do not own the equity represented by
those shares, nor do they have a significant stake in the outcome of their
votes. They cannot be expected to monitor the management's performance
in maximizing share value, as a private controlling shareholder would
do. As a result of this agency problem, the shareholder voting system
fails to exercise optimal control over the management. Although the agency
problem is inherent in majority state ownership, the state can exercise
meaningful corporate control if corporate governance of the state owned
corporations is well-structured. This project surveys the current corporate
governance structure of China's state owned corporations, and makes recommendation
on possible ways to improve state majority shareholder's monitoring of
corporate management. Kaichen also worked on a separate project on The
Shanghai People's Congress, for which he received support from a Yale
Public Interest Grant at Yale Law School, and was advised by the director's
of The China Law Center.
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