Ron Harris is the Kalman Lubowsky Professor of Law and History, and former Dean, at the Faculty of Law in Tel-Aviv University.
His main research field is the history of the business corporation. He studies the business corporation in Britain and comparatively, and in the wider context of legal and economic history, the history of industrialization, capitalism, colonialism and globalization. He also works on the history of other forms of business organization (partnerships, commenda, etc.) and of other legal-economic institutions (contracts, property rights, etc.). His additional research interests include the methodology of legal-economic history, the history and policy of bankruptcy and consumer credit, and Israeli legal history.
He earned an LL.B., and B.A. and M.A. in history from TAU and a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University. Harris was a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University (2017-18). He was a visiting professor at UC Berkeley, USC, Cornell University, École Normale Supérieure in Paris, London School of Economics, HEC Business School in Paris and NALSAR Hyderabad and spent extended research periods as a visiting fellow in Oxford. Harris is a co-founder of the Israeli Legal History Association, Honorary Felow of the American Society for Legal History, and the President of the Economic History Association of Israel.
Harris is the author of three books: Going the Distance: Eurasian Trade and the Rise of the Business Corporation, 1400-1700 (2020); Industrializing English Law: Entrepreneurship and Business Organization, 1720 – 1844 (2000); Israeli Law: The Formative Years 1948-1977 (2014). He is the editor of two other books and the author or co-author of numerous articles in economics, business, history and law journals. He is currently working on a book project on the comparative history of private companies in France, Germany, Britain, and the US (with Naomi Lamoreaux, Timothy Guinnane and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal) and on a book tentatively titled Empire Ltd.: Law and the Rise of Multinationals in the First Era of Globalization.