Curtis J. Milhaupt

Curtis Milhaupt

Curtis J. Milhaupt

  • Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
  • William F. Baxter-Visa International Professor of Law
  • Faculty Affiliate at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
  • Faculty Affiliate at the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions

Room N341, Neukom Building
Stanford Law School

(650) 724-8754 (voice)

Biography

Curtis J. Milhaupt’s research and teaching interests include comparative corporate governance, the legal systems of East Asia (particularly Japan), and state capitalism. In addition to numerous scholarly articles, he has co-authored or edited seven books, including Regulating the Visible Hand? The Institutional Implications of Chinese State Capitalism (Oxford, 2016), Law and Capitalism: What Corporate Crises Reveal about Legal Systems and Economic Development Around the World (Chicago, 2008) and Transforming Corporate Governance in East Asia (Routledge, 2008). His research has been profiled in The Economist, the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal and has been widely translated. He is a Research Associate of the European Corporate Governance Institute and a member of the American Law Institute.

Prior to his Stanford appointment in 2018, Prof. Milhaupt held chaired professorships in comparative corporate law and Japanese law at Columbia Law School, where he served on the faculty for nearly two decades. He has held numerous visiting appointments at US and foreign universities and is the recipient of two teaching awards. He has been affiliated with think tanks such as the Bank of Japan’s Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies and has been a member of several international project teams focused on major policy issues in Asia, including one charged with designing an “institutional blueprint” for a unified Korean peninsula.

Prior to entering academia, Professor Milhaupt practiced corporate law in New York and Tokyo with a major law firm. He holds a J.D. from Columbia Law School and a B.A. from the University of Notre Dame.  He also conducted graduate studies in law and international relations at the University of Tokyo.

publications

Journal Articles
June 2022

Issues Raised by the Tokyo Machinery Case and a Proposal for a New J-Pill

Author(s)
Issues Raised by the Tokyo Machinery Case and a Proposal for a New J-Pill

In The News

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
Blogs

The Political Economy of Global Stock Exchange Competition

Global stock exchanges today operate in a transformed environment. They remain commercial enterprises competing for listings, but they are also strategic assets deeply embedded in state policy and geopolitical rivalry.
The Political Economy of Global Stock Exchange Competition
U.S. President Donald Trump (L) listens as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks in the Cross Hall of the White House during an event on "Investing in America" on April 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Commentary

Lawless State Capitalism Is No Answer to China’s Rise

Invoking national security and the economic rivalry with China, the Trump administration is pursuing legally dubious interventions and control of private industry, with potentially high costs for US dynamism. Like the panic over Japan's rise in the 1980s, the administration's response is unwarranted and counterproductive.
Lawless State Capitalism Is No Answer to China’s Rise