1996 Reviews

The Legal Environment of International Finance: Thinking About Fundamentals

Fox, Merritt B.

A law, business, or public policy student entering the field of international finance will have a substantial advantage if she takes a course using the Scott and Wellons book entitled International Finance: Transactions, Policy, and Regulations. Most practitioners already working in the field will also find it useful reading since few of them know the range of institutional detail provided by these materials. The book is insufficiently comprehensive, however, to become the kind of classic that defines a field. Nor, with this limited focus, lack of bibliography, and lack of index, is it likely to become a standard reference work. Nevertheless, it is more than just another casebook. Its clear and concise materials illuminate the often mysterious and arcane details of the institutions of international finance and will open up a world about which many, absent its publication, would have remained ignorant. A future edition with a broadened focus would make the book that much more influential.