Cognitive Bias – What to Read According to European Company Law Experts
I have spent a wonderful, but rather short celebratory weekend in Amsterdam as me and my fellow colleagues have graduated, partied and had all around good fun reminiscing about our year together at the Oudemanhuispoort (pictured above). Upon returning to Bratislava and settling with a life of legal trainee, I promised myself to use my out of office time (currently represented by a very curved line) to start reading an interesting book on business, investing, corporate law, etc., at least until I figure out where my newly established hobby could lead me.
As I was making my selection, I tried hard to recall at least one of numerous book recommendations suggested by prof. Jaap Winter during our European Company Law classes. During those classes, Prof. Winter insisted that we answer a fairly complicated questions such as what is the role (goal) of corporate law (?) or should corporate law be viewed in the long term as serving the interests of stakeholders or in the short term as serving the interests of shareholders (?) from a behavioral perspective (see: Nemci predali Petit Press, celé vedenie Sme odchádza, lol.) Despite the fact that prof. Winter encouraged us to think about each of these questions through his book recommendations, I have considered them too ridiculous at the time and hence could not recall any of his suggestions. At the time, I have made a rather more conservative approach for exam preparation in the form of The Anatomy of Corporate Law. A Comparative and Functional Approach.
Nevertheless, the least that I can remember is that prof. Winter was more interested in motivations of legislators in charge of the European legislation, than in the European legislation itself. In other words: should the EU ‘regulate’ company law and experiment with it or is bottom-to-top regulatory competition based on selective regulation a more appropriate action (as the political process at the EU level is unsatisfactory and leads to inadequate and ugly compromise in which individual proposals are watered down by different social and cultural traditions of Member States). With this in mind and upon reading an article by Michal Truban (Priming - Florida efekt - alebo ako sme všetci manipulovaní okolím) I ended up selecting a book by Daniel Kahneman Thinking Fast And Slow.
In Kahneman’s book, human irrationality is a great theme and a red thread running through it. For example, Kahneman, a psychologist, who won the Nobel prize in economic (!) science, describes and explains an experiment where experienced German judges were inclined to give a shoplifter a longer sentence if they had just rolled a pair of dice loaded to give a high number. The book is packed with a lot of experiments and jaw-dropping case studies (for lawyers especially) and I am enjoying it tremendously.
While in Amsterdam for the graduation, I shared my selection of Kahneman’s book with a friend over coffee adding whether she might also know the recommendations formerly given by prof. Winter. Upon submitting this humble request, I was presented with a hand-written list of all suggested books that was buried in a small red Moleskine. Speed-reading through the list, I found out that it also includes the Kahnemans’s book. Immensely happy that I have made the right decision and excited for many long (W)inter nights to come, I hereby thank the friend for preserving of what I will now refer to as The List™ and share with you the rest of the selection.
For more, please refer to my GoodReads account.