This paper provides the first large-scale study measuring the bias in favour of going concerns induced by court-administered bankruptcy procedures. Although we find that the large majority of bankrupt firms in our sample of Hungarian firms are kept as going concerns, the evidence suggests that the going concern bias sharply reduces aggregate proceeds to pre-bankruptcy creditors. The high costs are accompanied by the eventual closure and piecemeal sale of three quarters of going concerns. These results arise because of poor court oversight and the compensation scheme awarded to the court appointed trustee managing the bankrupt company. Comparisons with other bankruptcy codes suggest that the application of the code and court procedures have an important impact on outcomes, including the degree of inefficiency.
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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.:
Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silane & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1996.
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Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1998.
"Law and Finance,"
Journal of Political Economy,
University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(6), pages 1113-1155, December.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Dan Bernhardt & Ed Nosal, 2004.
"Near-sighted Justice,"
Journal of Finance,
American Finance Association, vol. 59(6), pages 2655-2684, December.
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