caa a22 4500 605454973 CHVBK 20210128100210.0 cr unu---uuuuu 210128e20150901xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s10602-015-9187-1 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s10602-015-9187-1 Ip Eric Faculty of Law, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong aut The constitution of economic liberty in Hong Kong [Elektronische Daten] [Eric Ip] The constitutional foundations of economic liberty in Hong Kong, the freest economy in the world according to many, are little understood. So as the perceived spread of collusion, cronyism, and corruption in the territory ever since the 1997 transfer of sovereignty despite China's promises that little change will be made to the pre-existing way of life. Relying on the analytical tools of constitutional economics, this article argues that the Beijing-ratified Hong Kong Basic Law preserved only the form of the territory's original, British-descended, constitution, not the substance; as witness the insertion of contradictory interventionist mandates, and the consequent reversal of principal-agent relationship of government to the business elite. The erosion of economic freedom over the past 17years is explicable, at least partly, by the entry into force of the Basic Law, which has transformed the Hong Kong state from the impartial and passive umpire it once was into a partisan social engineer and economic gamesman, thereby unleashing skyrocketing rent-seeking opportunities. Springer Science+Business Media New York, 2015 Economic liberty nationallicence Rent-seeking nationallicence Constitutional design nationallicence Hong Kong nationallicence Constitutional Political Economy Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 26/3(2015-09-01), 307-327 1043-4062 26:3<307 2015 26 10602 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10602-015-9187-1 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10602-015-9187-1 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Ip Eric Faculty of Law, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Constitutional Political Economy Springer US; http://www.springer-ny.com 26/3(2015-09-01), 307-327 1043-4062 26:3<307 2015 26 10602