IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cbr/cbrwps/wp321.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Legal origins: reconciling law and finance and comparative law

Author

Listed:
  • Mathias M Siems

Abstract

In the last few years law and finance scholars have 'discovered' the usefulness of comparative law. Their studies look at the quantifiable effect that legal rules and their enforcement have on financial development in different countries. Moreover, they link their results with the long- standing distinction between Civil Law and Common Law countries. Whether this revival of 'legal families' is a useful way forward is, however, a matter of debate. The following article challenges these studies and looks for characteristic features which are more precise and meaningful than the use of legal families as such.

Suggested Citation

  • Mathias M Siems, 2006. "Legal origins: reconciling law and finance and comparative law," Working Papers wp321, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    • Handle: RePEc:cbr:cbrwps:wp321
    Note: PRO-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/cbrwp321/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 1999. "The Quality of Government," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 222-279, April.
    2. Simeon Djankov & Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2002. "The Regulation of Entry," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 117(1), pages 1-37.
    3. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez‐De‐Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2006. "What Works in Securities Laws?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 1-32, February.
    4. Thorsten Beck & Ross Levine, 2008. "Legal Institutions and Financial Development," Springer Books, in: Claude Ménard & Mary M. Shirley (ed.), Handbook of New Institutional Economics, chapter 11, pages 251-278, Springer.
    5. Simon Deakin, 2002. "Evolution for our time: a theory of legal memetics," Working Papers wp242, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    6. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez‐De‐Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2002. "Government Ownership of Banks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(1), pages 265-301, February.
    7. Claude Menard & Mary M. Shirley (ed.), 2005. "Handbook of New Institutional Economics," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-0-387-25092-2, November.
    8. Djankov, Simeon & McLiesh, Caralee & Shleifer, Andrei, 2007. "Private credit in 129 countries," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 299-329, May.
    9. Mary M. Shirley, 2005. "Institutions and Development," Springer Books, in: Claude Menard & Mary M. Shirley (ed.), Handbook of New Institutional Economics, chapter 24, pages 611-638, Springer.
    10. Djankov, Simeon & La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei, 2008. "The law and economics of self-dealing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3), pages 430-465, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Di Vita, Giuseppe, 2009. "Legal families and environmental protection: Is there a causal relationship?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 694-707, September.
    2. Uchenna R. Efobi & Belmondo V. Tanankem & Simplice A. Asongu, 2018. "Female Economic Participation with Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Advancement: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa," Research Africa Network Working Papers 18/005, Research Africa Network (RAN).
    3. Uchenna R. Efobi & Belmondo V. Tanankem & Simplice A. Asongu, 2018. "Female Economic Participation with Information and Communication Technology Advancement: Evidence from Sub‐Saharan Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 86(2), pages 231-246, June.
    4. Efobi, Uchenna & Tanankem, Belmondo & Asongu, Simplice, 2016. "Technological Advancement and the Evolving Gender Identities: A Focus on the Level of Female Economic Participation in Sub-Saharan Africa," MPRA Paper 77306, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. repec:ces:ifodic:v:4:y:2006:i:3:p:14567475 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Simon Deakin, 2006. "'Capacitas': Contract Law and the Institutional Preconditions of a Market Economy," Working Papers wp325, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    7. Pollitt, Michael, 2009. "Evaluating the evidence on electricity reform: Lessons for the South East Europe (SEE) market," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 13-23, March.
    8. repec:dau:papers:123456789/12816 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Di Vita, Giuseppe, 2008. "Differences in pollution levels among civil law countries: A possible interpretation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(10), pages 3774-3786, October.
    10. Baxamusa, Mufaddal & Jalal, Abu, 2014. "Does religion affect capital structure?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 112-131.
    11. Simon Deakin, 2008. "Legal Origin, Juridical Form and Industrialisation in Historical Perspective: The Case of the Employment Contract and the Joint-Stock Company," Working Papers wp369, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    12. Gerner-Beuerle, Carsten, 2014. "Determinants of corporate governance codes," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 55828, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Aguir, Iness & Misra, Lalatendu, 2017. "Ownership level choice and value creation in international joint ventures: The role of investor protection," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 515-535.
    14. Mathias M. Siems, 2006. "Shareholder Protection Across Countries – Is the EU on the Right Track?," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 4(03), pages 39-43, October.
    15. Mathias Siems, 2009. "Shareholder, Creditor and Worker Protection: Time Series Evidence about the Differences between French, German, Idian, UK and US Law," Working Papers wp381, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    16. Armour, J. & Deakin, S. & Mollica, V. & Siems, M.M., 2010. "Law and Financial Development: What we are learning from time-series evidence," Working Papers wp399, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    17. Mathias M. Siems, 2006. "Shareholder Protection Across Countries – Is the EU on the Right Track?," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 4(3), pages 39-43, October.
    18. Simon Deakin, 2008. "Legal Origin, Juridical Form and Industrialisation in Historical Perspective: The Case of the Employment Contract and the Joint-Stock Company," WEF Working Papers 0042, ESRC World Economy and Finance Research Programme, Birkbeck, University of London.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Buchen, Clemens, 2010. "Emerging economic systems in Central and Eastern Europe – a qualitative and quantitative assessment," EconStor Theses, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 37141, October.
    2. Beck Thorsten & Büyükkarabacak Berrak & Rioja Felix K. & Valev Neven T., 2012. "Who Gets the Credit? And Does It Matter? Household vs. Firm Lending Across Countries," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-46, March.
    3. Andrei Shleifer & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Rafael La Porta, 2008. "The Economic Consequences of Legal Origins," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(2), pages 285-332, June.
    4. Gur Aminadav & Elias Papaioannou, 2020. "Corporate Control around the World," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(3), pages 1191-1246, June.
    5. Beck, Thorsten, 2006. "Creating an efficient financial system : challenges in a global economy," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3856, The World Bank.
    6. Claessens, Stijn & Yurtoglu, B. Burcin, 2013. "Corporate governance in emerging markets: A survey," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 15(C), pages 1-33.
    7. World Bank, 2007. "Bangladesh : Strategy for Sustained Growth, Volume 1. Summary Report," World Bank Publications - Reports 7765, The World Bank Group.
    8. Beck, T.H.L., 2010. "Legal Institutions and Economic Development," Other publications TiSEM 8aa07b48-ce55-4cf6-8754-7, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    9. Douglas Cumming & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Joseph A McCahery & Armin Schwienbacher, 2020. "Tranching in the syndicated loan market around the world," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 51(1), pages 95-120, February.
    10. Frank O. Kwabi & Agyenim Boateng & Emmanuel Adegbite, 2019. "International equity portfolio investment and enforcement of insider trading laws: a cross-country analysis," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 53(2), pages 327-349, August.
    11. James R. Brown & Gustav Martinsson & Bruce C. Petersen, 2013. "Law, Stock Markets, and Innovation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(4), pages 1517-1549, August.
    12. Emenalo, Chukwunonye O. & Gagliardi, Francesca, 2020. "Is current institutional quality linked to legal origins and disease endowments? Evidence from Africa," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    13. Frank H. Stephen & David Urbano & Stefan van Hemmen, 2005. "The impact of institutions on entrepreneurial activity," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(7), pages 413-419.
    14. Andrew Ellul & Marco Pagano & Fausto Panunzi, 2010. "Inheritance Law and Investment in Family Firms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2414-2450, December.
    15. John Armour & Simon Deakin & Prabirjit Sarkar & Mathias Siems & Ajit Singh, 2009. "Shareholder Protection and Stock Market Development: An Empirical Test of the Legal Origins Hypothesis," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 6(2), pages 343-380, June.
    16. Ross Levine, 2005. "Law, Endowments and Property Rights," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(3), pages 61-88, Summer.
    17. Augusto de la Torre & Juan Carlos Gozzi & Sergio L. Schmukler, 2008. "Capital Market Development: Whither Latin America?," NBER Chapters, in: Financial Markets Volatility and Performance in Emerging Markets, pages 121-154, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Claessens, Stijn & Klingebiel, Daniela & Schmukler, Sergio L., 2006. "Stock market development and internationalization: Do economic fundamentals spur both similarly?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 316-350, June.
    19. Caprio, Gerard & Laeven, Luc & Levine, Ross, 2007. "Governance and bank valuation," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 584-617, October.
    20. Öztekin, Özde & Flannery, Mark J., 2012. "Institutional determinants of capital structure adjustment speeds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 88-112.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    legal origins; legal families; legal traditions; numerical comparative law; law and finance; law and development; Civil Law; Common Law;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K00 - Law and Economics - - General - - - General (including Data Sources and Description)
    • K20 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - General
    • K22 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Business and Securities Law
    • N20 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • N40 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General
    • P51 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems - - - Comparative Analysis of Economic Systems

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cbr:cbrwps:wp321. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ruth Newman (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.