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Legal versus economic explanations of the rise in bankruptcies in 19th century France

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Pierre-Cyrille Hautcoeur
Nadine Levratto

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Abstract

This paper aims at giving an explanation of the changes in the number of bankruptcies during the second part of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. We wonder in particular whether changes in bankruptcy law, which are substantial during the period, suffice to explain the rise in the proportion of bankrupted firms. We first describe the main features and changes of French insolvency law and show that they contradict the evolution observed at the aggregate level. We then show that existing statistics, which include a regional dimension, allow for a better test of the impact of legal changes. We show that some legal changes had a significant impact, but not all. We also observe that regional variations in bankruptcies are huge and do not correspond to French economic geography, but may rather be understood as a diffusion process from the Paris Court towards the provinces. The major differences among regions also suggest that, even in a civil law country, the letter the law is much less important than local practices.

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Paper provided by PSE (Ecole normale supérieure) in its series PSE Working Papers with number 2007-47.

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Date of creation: 2007
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Handle: RePEc:pse:psecon:2007-47

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  1. 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)
  2. Oliver Hart & Rafael La Porta Drago & Florencio Lopez-de-Silane & John Moore, 1997. "A New Bankruptcy Procedure that Uses Multiple Auctions," NBER Working Papers 6278, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Naomi R. Lamoreaux, 2005. "Legal Regime and Contractual Flexibility: A Comparison of Business's Organizational Choices in France and the United States during the Era of Industrialization," American Law and Economics Review, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(1), pages 28-61. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Aghion, Philippe & Hart, Oliver & Moore, John, 1992. "The Economics of Bankruptcy Reform," Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 8(3), pages 523-46, October.
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  5. 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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  6. 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)
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