As I mentioned earlier, I’m having my research assistant pull together bi-weekly top ten lists of SSRN downloads of papers announced during the last 60 days for corporate law, corporate governance law, and securities law. See below the fold for the lists.
Top 10 most-downloaded corporate law papers announced during the 60 day period ended June 22, 2006 (number of downloads in parentheses):
1. (138) Sarbanes-Oxley: Legislating in Haste, Repenting in Leisure by Stephen M. Bainbridge.
2. (113) Pay Without Performance and the Managerial Power Hypothesis: A Comment by Bengt R. Holmström.
3. (93) The Structure of Regulatory Competition in European Corporate Law by Martin Gelter.
4. (89) Bond Covenants and Creditor Protection: Economics and Law, Theory and Practice, Substance and Process by William W. Bratton.
5. (73) The New Vote Buying: Empty Voting and Hidden (Morphable) Ownership  by Henry T.C. Hu & Bernard S. Black.Â
6. (70) Overinvestment and Corporate Fraud in Efficient Capital Markets by Praveen Kumar & Nisan Langberg.
7. (56) Venture Capital Funds, Organizational Law, and Passive Investors by Christopher John Gulinello.
8. (55) Language, Deals and Standards: The Future of XML Contracts by Lawrence A. Cunningham.
9. (50) Shareholder Protection: A Leximetric Approach by Priya Lele & Mathias M. Siems.
10. (48) A Research Agenda for International Corporate Social Responsibility by Frans Paul van der Putten.
Top 10 most-downloaded corporate governance law papers announced during the 60 day period ended June 22, 2006 (number of downloads in parentheses):
1. (347) The Effect of Internal Control Deficiencies on Firm Risk and Cost of Equity Capital by Hollis Ashbaugh-Skaife, Daniel W. Collins, William R. Kinney, Jr. & Ryan LaFond.
2. (197) The Corporate Governance Industry by Paul Rose.
3. (185) The Merchant-Bank Struggle for Control of Payment Systems by Adam Levitin.
4. (177) Auditor Independence, Corporate Governance and Abnormal Accruals by Anwer S. Ahmed, Scott Duellman & Ahmed M. Abdel-Meguid.
5. (140) Does the Sox Definition of an Accounting Expert Matter? The Association between Audit Committee Director’s Expertise and Conservatism by Gopal V. Krishnan & Gnanakumar Visvanathan.
6. (134) Managerial Incentive, Ownership Control and External Finance: A Theory of Capital Structure by Xuewen Liu.
7. (133) Regulatory Responses to Global Corporate Scandals by Jennifer G. Hill.
8. (130) The Value of Transparency and the Cost of Complexity by Aswath Damodaran.
9. (113) Pay Without Performance and the Managerial Power Hypothesis: A Comment by Bengt R. Holmström.
10. (111) Too Many Bells? Too Many Whistles? Corporate Governance in the Post Enron, Post WorldCom Era by Douglas M. Branson.
Top 10 most-downloaded securities law papers announced during the 60 day period ended June 22, 2006 (total number of downloads in parentheses):
1. (195) Accounting Quality: International Accounting Standards and US GAAP by Mary E. Barth, Wayne R. Landsman, Mark H. Lang & Christopher D. Williams.
2. (140) Does the Sox Definition of an Accounting Expert Matter? The Association between Audit Committee Director’s Expertise and Conservatism by Gopal V. Krishnan & Gnanakumar Visvanathan.
3. (138) Sarbanes-Oxley: Legislating in Haste, Repenting in Leisure by Stephen M. Bainbridge.
4. (127) How and Why Credit Rating Agencies are Not Like Other Gatekeepers by Frank Partnoy.
5. (111) Too Many Bells? Too Many Whistles? Corporate Governance in the Post Enron, Post WorldCom Era by Douglas M. Branson.
6. (82) The Limits of Enron: Counterparty Risk in Bankruptcy Claims Trading by Adam Levitin.
7. (76) Private Standards, Public Governance: A New Look at the Financial Accounting Standards Board by William W. Bratton.
8. (74) In Enron’s Wake: Corporate Executives on Trial by Kathleen F. Brickey.
9. (73) The New Vote Buying: Empty Voting and Hidden (Morphable) Ownership  by Henry T.C. Hu & Bernard S. Black.
10. (70) An Empirical Analysis of Institutional Investors’ Impact as Lead Plaintiffs in Securities Fraud Class Actions by Randall S. Thomas & James D. Cox.Â
