The Legal Infrastructure of Securities Markets / April 2017

April 26, 2017

Markets are complex institutional infrastructures. They may take the form of informal clubs, private or public trading platforms or complex networks of parties and counter parties with or without clearing houses or sophisticated information technology linking market participants to each other. Yet, little attention is paid to how the organization of markets affects outcomes, including the distribution of power and wealth.

On April 10, 2017, Delphine Nougayrède and David Donald presented their recent work on the legal infrastructure of securities markets. Delphine tackled the transparency of ownership in securities markets; David placed the advance of computer, and in particular blockchain technology, into a broader historical perspective of market transformations.