Description
Book SynopsisOn the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, this book presents the first monographic study of the Hong Kong Basic Law as an economic document. The Basic Law codifies what Gonzalo Villalta Puig and Eric C Ip call free market constitutionalism, the logic of Hong Kong's economic liberty as the freest market economy in the world.
This book, which is the outcome of several years of study with the financial support of the General Research Fund of Hong Kong's Research Grants Council, evaluates the public choice rationale of the Basic Law and its projection on the Hong Kong economy, with a focus on the policy development of economic liberty both internally and externally. In the academic tradition of James M Buchanan's constitutional political economy, the book opens with a conceptualisation of free market constitutionalism in Hong Kong. It studies the origins of this concept in the 19th-c
Trade Review
‘[G]overnments and regulators often appear to me to forget that the volume and complexity of laws and regulations, or the level of tax, should not be such as to deter commercial activity and stifle entrepreneurism. … As the authors of this book show, Hong Kong is not in danger of falling into this particular trap: the Region is unusual in the extent to which it leaves people in the financial and commercial worlds free to carry on their businesses as they see fit without extensive legislative or regulatory interference or excessive taxation.’
The Right Honourable the Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, Non-Permanent Judge of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal; former President of The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.
‘[T]he present volume makes an original and unique contribution to both the international and domestic understanding of the essence of the "Hong Kong system" that constitutes one of the "Two Systems" under "One Country, Two Systems". The authors point out that from the legal and constitutional point of view, the Hong Kong system is one of "free market constitutionalism".’
Professor Albert HY Chen, Cheng Chan Lan Yue Professor of Constitutional Law at The University of Hong Kong; Member of the Committee for the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region under the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China.
Table of Contents1 The Concept of Free Market Constitutionalism in Hong Kong under Chinese Sovereignty
2 The Victorian Origins and Hayekian Development of Hong Kong’s Free Market Constitutionalism
3 The Codification of Free Market Constitutionalism in the Hong Kong Basic Law
4 The Interpretation and Application of Free Market Constitutionalism in the Hong Kong Basic Law
5 Free Market Constitutionalism and Hong Kong’s Internal Economic Policy
6 Free Market Constitutionalism and Hong Kong’s External Economic Policy
7 The Future of Free Market Constitutionalism in Hong Kong
