The Logic of Securities Law

Nicholas L. Georgakopoulos is the H. R. Woodard Professor of Law at the Robert H. McKinney School of Law, Indiana University. He has extensively researched and published on securities law and related fields. His previous publications include Principles and Methods of Law and Economics (Cambridge, 2005), and a co-authored five-volume treatise Blumberg on Corporate Groups.

• Foreword Richard Posner; 1. Introduction. Real markets and financial markets; Part I. Definition of a Security: When to Leave Buyer Beware for Seller Disclose?: 2. Toward defining a security; 3. The vacuous definition of a security; 4. The function of investment contract; 5. Pricing mechanisms; 6. From the sale of business doctrine to Gustafson; 7. Gustafson works!; 8. Definition conclusion; Part II. Disclosure: Why Subsidize Informed Traders?: 9. Introduction; 10. An overview of disclosure theories; 11. The failure of the corporate disclosure decision; Part III. Deterrence of Securities Fraud: 12. Introduction to deterrence intensity; 13. Comparing the economic function of deceit to that of securities fraud; 14. Reliance in deceit and securities fraud; 15. Conclusion of deterrence intensity; Part IV. Insider Trading: 16. Introduction to insider trading; 17. Insider trading law; 18. Defining insiders; 19. Concluding the insider trading analysis; Part V. The Virtuous Cycle of Liquid Markets, Accurate Prices and Cheap Trading: 20. The virtuous cycle; 21. Closing note: financial crises and securities law.

'One does not need to agree with Professor Georgakopoulos' core thesis (I have a much more deregulatory view) to love this book. It is strong and provocative without being partisan. It contains an impressive up-to-date summary of legal doctrine, relevant institutions, current empirical research in finance and accounting, peppered with anecdotes and what old-school print press quaintly calls 'human interest stories'. It manages to explain basic finance concepts without math in the way that's both correct and comprehensible. Students of law will find it useful to impose structure on the otherwise unwieldy and political field of securities law. Students of finance and accounting could use it to replace their favorite source of legal doctrine - a lunch with a law professor. The text strikes me as something that the author actually wants to be read, which deserves separate pondering and admiration.​' Katherine Litvak, Northwestern University, Washington, DC