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

Abstract

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 their offerings upon American securities exchanges. The SEC has responded by taking initiatives in two arenas, domestic and international. In the domestic arena, it has made a number of efforts to ease regulatory and disclosure requirements for foreign issuers that wish to offer their securities on U. S. exchanges. Internationally, it has forged bilateral and multilateral relationships to enhance internationally mechanisms for market surveillance and information sharing; it has taken an interest in international harmonization of regulatory practices; and it has assumed a leading role in the movement to encourage the development of international accounting standards. These responses are not mutually exclusive; such efforts often overlap. This paper finds that the SEC has responded to internal and external pressures to reduce the regulatory burden on foreign private issuers within the legalistic context of the U. S. culture; it has proceeded deliberately, taking a gradualist approach to change.