People

Merritt Fox

Affiliation: 
Columbia University
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Merritt Fox is an economist and legal scholar whose work in corporate and securities law is influential in setting the agenda for capital markets regulation. He also is co-director of the Center for Law and Economic Studies and co-director of the Program in the Law and Economics of Capital Markets.

His research interests include law and economics, securities disclosure regulation, international securities regulation, and comparative corporate law. Fox’s books include The New Stock Market: Law, Economics, and Policy (2019), Corporate Governance Lessons from Transition Economy Reforms (2006), and Finance and Industrial Performance in a Dynamic Economy (1987). Fox’s articles have appeared in numerous publications, including the Columbia Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, NYU Law Review, Michigan Law Review, and Business Lawyer.

As one of the directors of the Program in Law and Economics of Capital Markets, Fox leads the New Special Study designed to guide policymaking for capital markets. He brings a law and economics perspective to his courses on Corporate Finance and Securities Regulation. He also has a course on Capital Markets Regulation, which is offered jointly with Columbia Business School. 

Fox chairs Columbia’s university-wide Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and past chair of the business association’s section of the Association of American Law Schools.

Before joining Columbia Law School, in 2003, Fox taught at the University of Michigan Law School, where he also served as director of the Center for International and Comparative Law and the co-director for Corporate Governance Studies for the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan Business School. He has also taught at Indiana University Law School, Tilburg University, Fordham University Law School, and Yale College. 

Before entering academia, Fox practiced corporate and securities law with Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, focusing on international and domestic public offerings and international lending to Latin America.

Publications

  • Corporate Governance Lessons for Transition Economy Reforms

    Ed. Merritt B. Fox and Michael A. Heller
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    Corporate Governance Lessons from Transition Economy Reforms explores a timely topic at the intersection of economics, law, and policy reform. To date, most sophisticated theoretical work on corporate governance has focused on advanced market economies. In post-socialist countries, corporate finance and transition economics scholars have often done little more than convey the received theory to transition policymakers.

    This volume focuses, for the first time, on the reverse concern: what, if anything, do the reform experiences of transition countries teach about corporate governance theory more generally? To investigate this question, Merritt Fox and Michael Heller have assembled a stellar group of corporate governance theorists. The answers are startling.

    Together, these essays present a comprehensive new view on a provocative theme. Written in an accessible style, they will be of interest to a broad range of scholars, commentators, and policymakers. (Princeton University Press)

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