Corruption is typically understood as a sign of weak institutions and failed governance. But what if it is a deliberate political technology used to consolidate power, discipline rivals, and reshape political systems?

This is the argument advanced by University of Chicago sociologist Kimberly Kay Hoang in the latest episode of the APARC Briefing series. Drawing on years of ethnographic research across Southeast Asia, including Vietnam, Myanmar, Hong Kong, and Singapore, as well as offshore tax havens, Hoang uses a comparative Asian lens to show how both democratic and authoritarian governments strategically align with private capital, reinforcing elite power. Hoang joined APARC Director Kiyoteru Tsutsui to share core insights from her work.

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Kimberly Kay Hoang speaks on the APARC Briefing series with host Kiyoteru Tsutsui.

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She argues that corruption discourse often operates as a political tool, widely seen across Asian political economies and increasingly evident in the United States during the Trump era. This rhetoric, she says, tends not so much to dismantle institutions but to reshape them, concentrating authority in the executive and weakening checks and balances. According to Hoang, these patterns reflect a broader global shift toward more oligarchic forms of governance, where political power is increasingly concentrated among transnational elites.

"We often think of corruption as a failure of governance – that it's a weak state, and weak states can’t govern," Hoang says. "But in Southeast Asia and in other parts of East Asia, it has become an instrument for governance. It's a way of consolidating political power, weaponizing corruption."

From Vietnam's Hostess Bars to Global Finance

Hoang's research journey began in an unexpected place: working 12-hour shifts in Vietnamese hostess bars in 2009-2010, shortly after the global financial crisis. What started as an ethnographic study of the sex industry and human trafficking in Vietnam evolved into something far larger: a story of Asian ascendancy and Western decline playing out in micro-transactions.

"I started to witness local Vietnamese men turning down deals with Western businessmen and taking extraordinary deals from investors from China, parts of Southeast Asia – Hong Kong and Singapore – and Korea, Taiwan," Hoang recalls. When she examined foreign direct investment data, "the numbers lined up to what I was seeing at a micro level."

But when she presented these findings in the United States, the response was skeptical, even hostile. "People would say, 'Okay, yes, the economy is in decline, but America still has the strongest military,' or 'China is really dependent on the American economy, so if the American economy collapses, so will China's,'" she remembers. "It was a huge oversight of American arrogance to just believe that [Asian ascendancy] was impossible."

Her continued research led her to follow not just the money but "the people who move the money" – from Vietnam and Myanmar to Hong Kong and Singapore, and ultimately to offshore tax havens in the British Virgin Islands, Panama, the Seychelles, and the Cayman Islands.

The Architecture of Global Capital

What Hoang uncovered was what she calls an "architecture of global capital" – an invisible financial infrastructure built by "hidden engineers" including specialized wealth managers, lawyers, and financial advisors who coordinate across borders to move elite wealth beyond the reach of any single nation-state.

The scale is staggering: approximately $7.6 trillion in household wealth is hidden offshore globally, with the top 0.01% avoiding about 25% of their tax obligations through legal structures and shell corporations.

"We have to move beyond national boundaries," Hoang argues, "because global oligarchs choose the sovereigns and choose the jurisdictions that govern their financial transactions and activities."

This system creates what Hoang describes in her book, Spiderweb Capitalism: How Global Elites Exploit Frontier Markets (Princeton University Press), as a web of legal and financial gray zones that allow wealth to compound while evading accountability.

Corruption as Governance Mechanism

Hoang’s work exposes the connections between the rise of global elites, corruption, and the emergence of oligarchic governance. Across both Asia and the United States, she explains, corruption discourse operates as a mechanism for reshaping democratic governance by means of dissolving the boundary between political authority and economic power.

"What does that mean? It means that we no longer rely on institutions," she says. "People who have executive authority can just go after their rivals."

This creates what Hoang calls "anticipatory compliance," a situation in which political and economic elites preemptively align themselves with power centers. The mechanism works through strategic ambiguity: when corruption charges can be selectively deployed, everyone becomes potentially vulnerable, leading to self-regulation through fear.

While this pattern is well-established in countries like China and Vietnam, Hoang sees similar dynamics emerging in the United States. "Under the Trump administration, we've seen charges of corruption being weaponized as a tool of governance," she notes, while emphasizing that elements of this already appeared under the Biden administration.

Democratic Reordering, Not Collapse

When explaining the impacts of corruption discourse on democratic governance, Hoang is careful to distinguish between democratic collapse and what she terms "democratic reordering." Rather than overtly capturing the state, global oligarchs work through existing institutions, gradually redefining their function through moralized narratives, weakened oversight, selective enforcement, and strategic risk management. The outward forms of democracy remain intact, but the independence of courts, election fairness, and accountability mechanisms are steadily eroded. "They increasingly serve concentrated elite interests."

In comparing the United States to China, Hoang notes a crucial difference: "China has a long view. They're playing a 50-year view [...] If we're in this constant [electoral] cycle, and we've delegitimized oversight and political authority, [...] we need to have stronger independent institutions that outlast whoever is in office."

Finding Hope in Resistance

Despite her sobering analysis, Hoang sees reasons for optimism. "What gives me hope is that, if you look carefully, there are a lot of resistance movements," she says. "I think there's a growing battle between the millionaires and billionaires."

She points to resistance not just from grassroots movements but from millionaires who "don't want to live in a billionaire oligarchy world, who feel economically precarious vis-à-vis the extreme inequality."

The challenge, she argues, is that both mainstream and social media highlight extremes while missing the middle-level discourse and resistance movements that are actively organizing.

Kimberly Kay Hoang is Professor of Sociology and the College, and Director of Global Studies at the University of Chicago. In addition to Spiderweb Capitalism, she is the author of Dealing in Desire: Asian Ascendancy, Western Decline, and the Hidden Currencies of Global Sex Work (University of California Press). Her forthcoming work examines U.S.-China power relations in offshore financial centers.

The full APARC Briefing conversation with Hoang is available on APARC’s YouTube channel.

The optimistic assumptions that shaped the wave of globalization at the turn of the 21st century have given way to geoeconomics, also known as economic statecraft, or the use of economic leverage to advance the geopolitical interests of nation-states. In this environment of "weaponized interdependence," corporations have become actors on the frontlines of the U.S.-China rivalry, the Russia-Ukraine war, China-Taiwan tensions, and other national security conflicts in which they are organizationally ill-suited to play a central role, cautions APARC Faculty Affiliate Curtis J. Milhaupt, the William F. Baxter-Visa International Professor of Law and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. 

Milhaupt, an internationally recognized expert on comparative corporate governance, delivered a keynote speech titled Corporate Governance in an Era of Geoeconomics at the Corporate Governance Conference in Milan, Italy, on February 12, 2026. He described the era of geoeconomics as representing a dramatic departure from early 2000s thinking, when capital markets were viewed as politically neutral, shareholder identity was considered irrelevant, and scholars predicted global convergence on Western corporate governance models. All three assumptions have collapsed, posing significant repercussions for firm-specific legal risks and governance challenges. Watch Milhaupt's presentation:

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Heightened Compliance Risk

The U.S.-China rivalry has created a particularly complex challenge for corporate governance, says Mihaupt. The United States has enacted multiple laws to curtail technology transfers to China, with China responding in a tit-for-tat fashion. The resulting, rapidly shifting and conflicting legal environment makes it "virtually impossible for a compliance department to comply with both U.S. and Chinese regulations."

Milhaupt introduced the concept of "ESG + G," adding geoeconomics to the Environmental, Social, and Governance framework used by investors and companies to assess a company's sustainability, ethical impact, and risk management beyond mere financial performance. Like ESG, geoeconomics involves corporations taking on roles traditionally played by governments. "I think in many respects private companies have become national security partners of their home country governments," he said.

Milhaupt's review of the disclosures of risk factors in the securities filings of public companies in the United States over the past 20 years shows the dramatic shift in corporate risk perception. Mentions of geopolitical risks related to export controls, the China-Taiwan conflict, and supply chain vulnerabilities have spiked sharply since 2020, with a particularly dramatic increase following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Despite these challenges, corporations appear to be unprepared for the exploitation of the vulnerabilities created by economic interdependence in the era of geoeconomics. Only 5% of Russell 3000 companies disclose information on how they monitor geopolitical risk, Milhaupt finds. Among those that do, most provide no details about their strategies. Meanwhile, the expertise necessary for geopolitical risk assessment is declining as a percentage of S&P 500 boards of directors.

Divergent Governance Paths

In the era of globalization, corporate governance systems worldwide largely converged around the liberal vision of shareholder primacy. In today’s geoeconomic era, however, a different kind of convergence may be emerging: one shaped less by market ideology and more by the shared political values and strategic priorities of the home governments of globally active firms. Thus, we are witnessing increasing concern with the national identity of corporations and their shareholders, Milhaupt observes. "The standard legal tests for corporate national identity – jurisdiction of incorporation, or the real seat doctrine – are in danger of being overriden by political determinations such as the one that was applied to TikTok in the United States."

At the same time, Milhaupt argues, we may be witnessing the beginning of a movement in the opposite direction to the Western model of corporate governance: "the spread of what might be thought of as state capitalism in the West." To illustrate this trend, Milhaupt cites the case of the U.S. government's "golden share" in U.S. Steel as a condition for allowing its merger with Japanese company Nippon Steel.

While Milhaupt recognizes the necessity of government actions to protect national security in the corporate sector, he warns against ad hoc informal interventions in the private sector. "I don't think that these are really the answer to competition with Beijing," he said. "I'm particularly concerned about the impact of these government interventions on global investment, which relies on a predictable legal regulatory enforcement regime."

Milhaupt concludes that the era of geoeconomics is "the new normal," and both companies and governments must adapt to a world where economic and national security concerns are inextricably linked.

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At a recent seminar hosted by APARCʼs China Program, Professor Jessica Chen Weiss, the David M. Lampton Professor of China Studies at the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, presented findings from her forthcoming book, Faultlines: The Tensions Beneath China's Global Ambitions (under contract with Oxford University Press), which examines how domestic politics and regime insecurity shape China’s foreign policy ambitions, prospects for peaceful coexistence, and the future of international order. Drawing on research and fieldwork in China, Weiss argued that understanding Beijingʼs behavior on the world stage requires looking beyond ideology to the contested priorities and political calculations that drive decision-making within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Weiss proposed a framework centered on three pillars that have sustained CCP legitimacy since the late 1970s: sovereignty (nationalism), security (civility), and development. Her analysis reveals that China's objectives are not static but moving targets shaped by competing domestic interests, leadership priorities, and international pressures.

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The Sovereignty-Security-Development Paradigm
 

At the heart of Weissʼs argument is the recognition that the CCPʼs foremost concern is domestic survival. In the face of the collapse of most communist regimes, the Party has remained vigilant against what it calls “peaceful evolution” and democratic contagion.

On issues touching core sovereignty concerns – Taiwan, Hong Kong, and maritime territorial claims – China has been “hyperactive” in making demands, even when doing so invites international censure. Weiss explained that the more central an issue is to CCP domestic legitimacy, the harder it becomes to make concessions, and the more likely international pressure is to backfire.

Yet tensions exist between competing priorities. China has compromised on certain border disputes to shore up domestic security, while its evolving stance on climate change reflects a shift from viewing carbon limits as threats to growth to recognizing the greater threat environmental catastrophes present to the nation’s stability.

Beyond the Monolith: China's Internal Contestation
 

Weissʼs research demonstrates that authoritarian China is far from monolithic. Different geographic, economic, institutional, and even ideological interests shape policy debates, even if most actors lack formal veto power. Local governments can resist central directives, as evidenced during the COVID-19 outbreak, when local officials initially withheld information about human-to-human transmission from the central government to prevent panic from disrupting important political meetings.

This pattern of center-local tension extends to China's international commitments. Local officials often game environmental regulations to juice growth and secure promotions, undermining Beijingʼs pledges on carbon emissions. On issues ranging from Belt and Road investments to export controls, implementation frequently diverges from stated policy as local actors pursue their own interests.

Weiss’s framework distinguishes among issues that are both central and uncontested (such as Taiwan), those that are central but contested (like climate change and trade policy), and peripheral issues where Beijing has shown greater flexibility (such as demonstrated by many UN peacekeeping initiatives). This helps explain why international pressure succeeds in some domains but fails spectacularly in others.

"The more central an issue is domestically, the more pressure the government faces to perform, and the harder it is to defy these domestic expectations," Weiss said. As a result, international pressure on these central issues is more likely to backfire, forcing the government to be seen as defending its core interests. She underscored that "even on these central issues, there's often tension with other central priorities, and managing these trade-offs comes with a number of different risks. It also means that sometimes an issue that touches on one pillar of regime support can yield to another."

Nationalism as Constraint and Tool
 

Weiss described nationalism as both a pillar of the CCPʼs legitimacy and a potential vulnerability when the government’s response appears weak. While large-scale anti-foreign protests have become rare, nationalist sentiment remains active online and shapes diplomatic calculations.

During Speaker Nancy Pelosiʼs 2022 visit to Taiwan, Chinese social media erupted with calls for the PLA to shoot down her plane. One interlocutor told Weiss his 14-year-old son and friends had stayed up past bedtime to watch Pelosiʼs plane land, illustrating nationalismʼs penetration into Chinese society.

Survey research reveals Chinese public opinion is quite hawkish, with majorities supporting military spending and viewing the U.S. presence in Asia as a threat. The government often refrains from suppressing nationalist sentiment to avoid backlash, even when doing so creates diplomatic complications. Weissʼs public opinion survey experiments, however, reveal that tough but vague threats can provide the government with wiggle room for de-escalation, although disapproval emerges when action is not sufficiently tough.

Regime Security Without Ideological Crusade
 

Weiss pushed back against arguments that China is bent on global domination or that ideology drives conflict with the West. While the CCP seeks a less ideologically threatening environment, it must balance this against development and market access.

This pragmatic calculus explains China's constrained support for Russiaʼs war in Ukraine — Beijing fears secondary sanctions more than it values autocratic solidarity. Rather than exporting revolution, China has worked with incumbents of all political stripes in the service of its national interests.

Chinaʼs strategy focuses on making autocracy viable at home, not on defeating democracy globally. This suggests room for coexistence if both sides can reach a détente on interference in internal affairs.

“China's activities are making autocracy more viable and, to the extent that China is succeeding, making China's example more appealing as a consequence. But its strategy doesn't hinge on defeating democracy around the world,” argued Weiss. This implies, to her view, that “there is more room for coexistence between autocracies and democracies if these different systems can find or reach a potential détente in the realm of ideas about how countries govern themselves, and importantly, they need to pull back their efforts in other societies across boundaries.”

Interdependence and Future Trajectories
 

Weiss concluded by outlining how her framework suggests different engagement strategies depending on where issues fall within the centrality-contestation matrix. On central but uncontested issues like Taiwan, pressure proves counterproductive, and reciprocal restraint may be most promising. On central but contested issues like currency, multilateral pressure can influence certain Chinese constituencies against others. On peripheral issues, such pressure is most effective unless powerful domestic constituencies subvert implementation.

Addressing questions about U.S.-China decoupling, Weiss noted that both sides recognize there are interdependencies that don’t have quick solutions. Even in a critical area like minerals, diversification will take at least a decade, and Chinese processing will still dominate globally. The goal of diversification should be to preempt coercion, not to achieve true decoupling.

Japan’s first female prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, began her tenure with strong approval ratings. Yet rising tensions with China over her recent comments about Taiwan and doubts over her government's newly unveiled stimulus package now loom large. Kiyoteru Tsutsui, the director of APARC and our Japan Program, assesses Takaichi's first month in office and what to watch for next. Get his full analysis in our APARC Briefing:

APARC Briefing is a new format we are experimenting with to provide concise, evidence-based analysis of fast-moving developments in Asian affairs. To stay up to date on future installments in this new video series, subscribe to APARC's YouTube channel.

Stanford University's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) is pleased to invite nominations for the 2026 Shorenstein Journalism Award. The award, which carries a cash prize of US$10,000, recognizes outstanding journalists and news media outlets for excellence in covering the complexities of the Asia-Pacific region. The 2026 award will honor a Western news media outlet or a journalist whose substantial body of work has primarily appeared in Western news media. APARC welcomes award nomination submissions from news editors, publishers, scholars, news outlets, journalism organizations, and entities focused on researching and analyzing the Asia-Pacific region. Entries are due by February 15, 2026.

The award defines the Asia-Pacific region broadly as including Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, and Australasia. Both individual journalists with a considerable body of work and news media outlets are eligible for the award. Nominees’ work may be in traditional forms of print or broadcast journalism and/or in new forms of multimedia journalism. The Award Selection Committee oversees the judging of nominees and is responsible for selecting honorees.

An annual tradition since 2002, the award honors the legacy of Mr. Walter H. Shorenstein, APARC's benefactor, and his twin passions for promoting excellence in journalism and understanding of Asia. Throughout its history, the award has recognized world-class journalists and news media who push the boundaries of coverage of the Asia-Pacific region and champion press freedom and human rights.

Recent honorees include Netra News, Bangladesh's premier public interest journalism outlet; Chris Buckley, the New York Times' chief China correspondent; The Caravan, India’s esteemed magazine of long-form journalism; Emily Feng, then NPR's Beijing correspondent; and Nobel Laureate Maria Ressa, CEO and president of the Philippines-based news organization Rappler. Visit the award page to learn more.

Award nominations are accepted electronically through Sunday, February 15, 2026, at 11:59 PM PST.  Visit the award nomination entry page for information about the nomination procedures and to submit an entry.

APARC will announce the winner by May 2026.

Please direct all inquiries to aparc-communications@stanford.edu.

On October 21, 2025, Ms. Sanae Takaichi, a hardline conservative, became the first female Prime Minister of Japan, marking a historic moment for the country, which has one of the worst records among the world's developed democracies for gender equality. Yet, Takaichi's views on empowering women are complex, and she steps into office at a moment of internal party weakness and intense domestic and regional strategic pressures. On October 28, she will welcome President Trump to Tokyo, where the two leaders will hold a summit meeting.

In the following video explainer, Stanford sociologist Kiyoteru Tsutsui, the Henri H. and Tomoye Takahashi Professor and Senior Fellow in Japanese Studies at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) and the director of APARC and its Japan Program, discusses Takaichi’s background and rise to power, her cabinet choices, and what they signal for Japan's future. Watch:

Video: Michael Breger

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In the Media

On October 28, 2025, on the heels of the summit meeting of Prime Minister Takaichi and President Trump, Tsutsui joined Scott Tong, host of WBUR's Here & Now, to discuss Takaichi's rise to power and what's next for Japan. Listen:

This post, first published by the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, is based on the co-authors' recent European Corporate Governance Institute - Law Working Paper No. 872/2025.

Introduction

Conventional accounts of the rivalry among global stock exchanges emphasize regulatory competition to attract initial public offerings (IPOs). This framing – often cast as a “race to the bottom” – suggests that exchanges compete primarily by lowering governance and disclosure standards to secure marquee listings. In a new paper, we argue that this view is both incomplete and outdated. By examining stock exchanges through the broader lens of political economy, we demonstrate that IPO competition represents only a fraction of the forces shaping today’s capital markets. Exchanges have become strategic assets at the intersection of commercial imperatives, national economic goals, and geopolitical rivalry.

Our analysis makes two central contributions. First, we show that the importance of IPO competition to exchanges, and the regulatory arbitrage thought to propel it, is often overstated. While competition, particularly between New York and non-US exchanges, can be fierce, IPOs generate only marginal revenues for exchanges in comparison to revenues from data and analytics, and private capital is an increasingly important alternative source of finance. Second, we bring nation states into the picture. Governments are active participants in global stock exchange competition, with strong economic, policy, and geopolitical stakes in the health of their domestic or regional exchanges. We highlight how exchanges increasingly function as mechanisms of policy transmission, instruments of financial sovereignty, and geopolitical screening devices – sometimes at the expense of their economic functions.
 

The Shein Listing Saga as a Microcosm

The recent saga of fast-fashion retailer Shein illustrates the new dynamics. After confidentially filing for a New York listing in 2023, Shein encountered pushback from U.S. lawmakers over alleged use of forced labor in its supply chain. It then turned to the London Stock Exchange, which was eager to obtain a high-profile listing despite the allegations, only to face heightened scrutiny from U.K. advocacy groups. Ultimately, Beijing itself blocked the company’s foreign listing, possibly fearing the enhanced scrutiny it would entail, forcing Shein to pursue a Hong Kong listing instead.

This episode highlights several themes we explore in the paper: the enduring prestige of high-profile IPOs and the willingness of regulators to adjust standards to obtain them; and, crucially, the role of governments in shaping access to capital markets in light of geopolitical tensions and policies unrelated to investor protection.
 

Limits of IPO Competition

Stock exchanges have long competed for listings, including by lowering listing or governance standards, but this rivalry is subject to important limitations and caveats:

1. Demutualization and Profit Motives: Most exchanges have demutualized and now operate as profit-oriented shareholder-owned corporations. Listing fees today account for only a small fraction of exchange revenues. For example, listing fees on the London Stock Exchange account for just 3% of its parent company’s income; for the NYSE, the figure is around 10%.
    
2. Regulatory Competition and Governance Standards: Exchanges have historically relaxed rules to secure listings. The London Stock Exchange diluted its rules on related-party transactions in an unsuccessful attempt to attract Saudi Aramco. London, Hong Kong, and Singapore revised their listing rules to allow multiple-voting shares to compete with U.S. exchanges. While these episodes raise familiar race to the top/bottom questions, the importance of regulatory arbitrage in the global capital markets today can be overstated, in part for reasons explained in points 3 and 4 below.
    
3. Economic Motivations Beyond Regulation: Many firms choose the NYSE or Nasdaq not principally for regulatory reasons but for liquidity, visibility, and greater opportunities in areas such as M&A in the huge U.S. market. To name a few recent examples, Flutter Entertainment, CRH, Wise, Spotify, and Arm all explained that they listed in New York for these reasons.
    
4. Competition from Private Capital: Perhaps the most important caveat is that exchanges increasingly compete less with one another than with private markets. Assets under management in private equity, venture capital, and private credit have ballooned from $9.7 trillion in 2012 to over $24 trillion by 2023. Firms avoid public markets to sidestep disclosure burdens, compliance costs, and shareholder activism. Since 2022, take-private deals have outpaced IPOs more than threefold.
    

Taken together, these trends suggest that the long-running narrative on regulatory competition for IPOs misses major contemporary market dynamics.
 

States as Stakeholders

If capital is global, why should governments be deeply invested in the fate of their domestic exchanges? We identify three reasons.

1. Direct and Indirect Economic Benefits: Domestic exchanges generate tax revenues, create jobs, and facilitate capital formation. They provide a platform for small and medium-sized enterprises less likely to seek foreign listings, thereby stimulating domestic firm growth and innovation.
    
2. Preventing Corporate Exodus: Policymakers fear that firms listing abroad may eventually relocate headquarters, talent, and tax bases overseas. European reports, for example, have warned of a “technology drain” as innovative firms list on U.S. markets. Domestic exchanges thus serve as anchors against corporate flight.
    
3. Home Bias: Evidence shows that investors retain a preference for domestically listed companies. Governments reinforce this tendency by encouraging pension funds and other institutional investors to allocate assets domestically.
    

Exchanges as Geopolitical Instruments

Perhaps the most profound shift lies in the politicization of public capital markets. Exchanges now function not simply as neutral financing infrastructure but as levers of economic statecraft and policy transmission. Some examples:

1. United States–China Rivalry: The Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act, Ant Group’s aborted IPO, Didi’s delisting from the NYSE, and heightened scrutiny of Chinese firms on U.S. markets illustrate how capital markets are enmeshed in national security, data security, and geopolitical concerns.
    
2. Europe: The EU’s Capital Markets Union, recently reframed as the “Savings and Investment Union,” is now explicitly tied to European economic sovereignty and geopolitical positioning. Separately, ESG regulations such as the CSRD and the Supply Chain Directive extend Europe’s normative agenda globally by imposing climate and human rights obligations on listed firms.
    
3. Other Jurisdictions increasingly view exchanges as state assets. For example, Singapore has called relisting on the SGX a “national duty.” India frames domestic listings under the banner of self-reliance. Israel highlights its stock exchange as a force for resilience in wartime. Japan has used the TSE as a tool to implement corporate governance reforms.
    

In short, capital market policies and listing decisions now intersect with areas of government interest well beyond economics, including national security, human rights, financial sovereignty, and industrial policy. But efforts to harness exchanges for strategic ends risks fragmenting global markets and undermining their economic role.
 

Conclusion

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. High-profile IPO competition, though still active, is only part of the story. As private capital expands and governments assert new forms of control, exchanges have been repurposed as instruments of financial sovereignty and normative policy enforcement.

About the Authors

Curtis J. Milhaupt is the William F. Baxter – Visa International Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, and Fellow at the European Corporate Governance Institute. Wolf-Georg Ringe is Professor of Law and Finance at the University of Hamburg, Visiting Professor at the University of Oxford, and Research Member at the European Corporate Governance Institute.