Insider trading : law, ethics, and reform /

Anderson (Mississippi College) tackles the financial crime of insider trading that is questionably malum prohibitum through the lens of philosopher and law scholar. As this reviewer has found in her own research on the subject, Anderson notes that the biggest problem with insider trading (illegal, not allowed, and disclosed trading by employees in publicly traded companies) is that the laws themselves, as is common in much of white collar crime regulation, are ambiguous and not uniformly enforced. Anderson offers a concise history of legislation, including brief cross-national comparisons, with a decidedly non-Eurocentric view to include India, Japan, Russia, and China, along with the expected European countries. Though thorough overall, there is little attention to sociological motivations, including attention to the culture of financial institutions, focusing more on individual rather than collective behavior, where insider trading may be "normative," even with what regulation does exist. Overall, a smart, fairly well-researched book that should be included in any literature review on the subject of financial crime or malfeasance, particularly as it is the first one to come along in some time devoted to scholarship rather than sensationalism. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students through professionals.--Laura Lynn Hansen, Western New England University