Political culture, the U.S. securities and exchange commission, and the internationalization of securities trading

摘要

For at least three decades, there have been demands from several quarters, both foreign and domestic, for the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to ease restrictive disclosure requirements upon foreign securities issuers to facilitate their theirudofferings upon American securities exchanges. The SEC hasudresponded by taking initiatives in two arenas, domestic andudinternational. In the domestic arena, it has made a number ofudefforts to ease regulatory and disclosure requirements for foreignudissuers that wish to offer their securities on U. S. exchanges.udInternationally, it has forged bilateral and multilateraludrelationships to enhance internationally mechanisms for marketudsurveillance and information sharing; it has taken an interest inudinternational harmonization of regulatory practices; and it hasudassumed a leading role in the movement to encourage the developmentudof international accounting standards. These responses are notudmutually exclusive; such efforts often overlap. This paper findsudthat the SEC has responded to internal and external pressures toudreduce the regulatory burden on foreign private issuers within theudlegalistic context of the U. S. culture; it has proceededuddeliberately, taking a gradualist approach to change.