I THE EVIDENCE ON CONVERGENCE A Formal Legal Change B The Structure of Share Ownership C The Growth of European Stock Markets D The Emergence of an International Market for Corporate Control E A Preliminary Evaluation F The Status of the Insider-Dominated Firm II WHEN DOES SEPARATION OF OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL ARISE? A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE A The United States Experience 1 The Role of Investment Bankers 2 The New York Stock Exchange as Guardian of the Public Investor B The British Experience C A Civil-Law Contrast: The French Experience D The German Experience: Statist Intervention That Stunted the M arket E A Preliminary Summary III\ DOES LAW MATTER?\ RECONSIDERED A Law and the Decentralized Common-Law World B The Sequence of Legal Change: Reinterpreting LLS&V 1 The United States Experience 2 The Global Experience C The Political Theory of Dispersed Ownership D Implications for Transitional Economies IV C ONCLUSION