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Shareholder Protection and Stock Market Development: An Empirical Test of the Legal Origins Hypothesis

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Author Info
John Armour
Simon Deakin
Prabirjit Sarkar
Mathias Siems
Ajit Singh

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Abstract

We test the 'law matters' and 'legal origin' claims using a newly created panel dataset meas-uring legal change over time in a sample of developed and developing countries. Our dataset improves on previous ones by avoiding country-specific variables in favour of functional and generic descriptors, by taking into account a wider range of legal data, and by considering the effects of weighting variables in different ways, thereby ensuring greater consistency of cod-ing. Our analysis shows that legal origin explains part of the pattern of change in the adop-tion of shareholder protection measures over the period from the mid-1990s to the present day: in both developed and developing countries, common law systems were more protective of shareholder interests than civil law ones. We explain this the result on the basis of the head start common law systems had in adjusting to an emerging 'global' standard based mainly on Anglo-American practice. Our analysis also shows, however, that civil law origin was not much of an obstacle to convergence around this model, since civilian systems were catching up with their counterparts in the common law. We then investigate whether there was a link in this period between increased shareholder protection and stock market devel-opment, using a number of measures such as stock market capitalisation, the value of stock-trading and the number of listed firms, after controlling for legal origin, the state of economic development of particular countries, and their position on the World Bank rule of law index. We find no evidence of a long-run impact of legal change on stock market development. This finding is incompatible with the claim that legal origin affects the efficiency of legal rules and ultimately economic development. Possible explanations for our result are that laws have been overly protective of shareholders; transplanted laws have not worked as ex-pected; and, more generally, the exogenous legal origin effect is not as strong as widely sup-posed.

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Paper provided by ESRC Centre for Business Research in its series ESRC Centre for Business Research - Working Papers with number wp358.

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Date of creation: Dec 2007
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Handle: RePEc:cbr:cbrwps:wp358

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Related research
Keywords: Law and finance; shareholder rights; corporate governance; corporate finance; legal origins; comparative law.;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Capital and Ownership Structure
K22 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Corporation and Securities Law
N20 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - General, International, or Comparative
O16 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment
P50 - Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems - - - General

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

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    Other versions:
  3. Priya P. Lele & Mathias M. Siems, 2007. "Diversity in Shareholder Protection in Common Law Countries," CESifo DICE Report, Ifo Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 5(1), pages 3-9, 05. [Downloadable!]
  4. Sonja Fagernäs & Prabirjit Sarkar & Ajit Singh, 2007. "Legal Origin, Shareholder Protection and the Stock Market: New Challenges from Time Series Analysis," ESRC Centre for Business Research - Working Papers wp343, ESRC Centre for Business Research. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Djankov, Simeon & Glaeser, Edward & La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei, 2003. "The new comparative economics," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 595-619, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Simeon Djankov & Rafael LaPorta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2005. "The Law and Economics of Self-Dealing," NBER Working Papers 11883, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Simon Deakin & Priya Lele & Mathias Siems, 2007. "The Evolution of Labour Law: Calibrating and Comparing Regulatory Regimes," ESRC Centre for Business Research - Working Papers wp352, ESRC Centre for Business Research. [Downloadable!]
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  9. Stijn Claessens & Leora F. Klapper, 2005. "Bankruptcy around the World: Explanations of Its Relative Use," American Law and Economics Review, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(1), pages 253-283. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Mathias Siems, 2007. "Shareholder Protection around the World ("Leximetric II")," ESRC Centre for Business Research - Working Papers wp359, ESRC Centre for Business Research. [Downloadable!]
  11. Stijn Claessens & Luc Laeven, 2003. "Financial Development, Property Rights, and Growth," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(6), pages 2401-2436, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Thorsten Beck & Ross Levine, 2003. "Legal Institutions and Financial Development," NBER Working Papers 10126, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Erik BERGLÖF & Ernst-Ludwig VON THADDEN, 1999. "The Changing Corporate Governance Paradigm : Implications for Transition and Developing Countries," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'Econométrie et d'Economie politique (DEEP) 9912, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, DEEP. [Downloadable!]
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  14. Ross Levine, 1997. "Financial Development and Economic Growth: Views and Agenda," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(2), pages 688-726, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Rajan, Raghuram G. & Zingales, Luigi, 2003. "The great reversals: the politics of financial development in the twentieth century," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 5-50, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Cheffins, Brian R, 2001. "Does Law Matter? The Separation of Ownership and Control in the United Kingdom," Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(2), pages 459-84, Part I Ju.
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  19. Edward L. Glaeser & Andrei Shleifer, 2003. "The Rise of the Regulatory State," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(2), pages 401-425, June.
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  20. Ajit Singh & Bruce Weisse & Alaka Singh, 2002. "Corporate governance, competition, the new international financial architecture and large corporations in emerging markets," ESRC Centre for Business Research - Working Papers wp250, ESRC Centre for Business Research. [Downloadable!]
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  22. Thorsten Beck & Asli Demirguc-Kunt, 2005. "Law and Firms' Access to Finance," American Law and Economics Review, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(1), pages 211-252. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  23. Priya P. Lele & Mathias M. Siems, 2007. "Shareholder Protection: A Leximetric Approach," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2006 170, Money Macro and Finance Research Group. [Downloadable!]
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  24. Beck, Thorsten & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Levine, Ross, 2003. "Law and finance: why does legal origin matter?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 653-675, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  25. Beck, Thorsten & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Levine, Ross, 2003. "Law, endowments, and finance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 137-181, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  26. Mahoney, Paul G, 2001. "The Common Law and Economic Growth: Hayek Might Be Right," Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(2), pages 503-25, Part I Ju.
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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Simon Deakin & Prabirjit Sarkar, 2008. "Assessing the Long-Run Economic Impact of Labour Law Systems: A Theoretical Reappraisal and Analysis of New Time Series Data," WEF Working Papers 0043, ESRC World Economy and Finance Research Programme, Birkbeck, University of London. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Simon Deakin, 2008. "Legal Origin, Juridical Form and Industrialisation in Historical Perspective: The Case of the Employment Contract and the Joint-Stock Company," ESRC Centre for Business Research - Working Papers wp369, ESRC Centre for Business Research. [Downloadable!]
  3. Prabirjit Sarkar, 2008. "Do the English Legal Origin Countries have more dispersed Share Ownership and more developed financial Systems?," ESRC Centre for Business Research - Working Papers wp375, ESRC Centre for Business Research. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. 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. [Downloadable!]
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