This paper offers the first comprehensive analysis of legal change in the protection of shareholder and creditor rights in transition economies and its impact on the propensity of firms to raise external finance. Following La Porta et al. (1998), the paper constructs an expanded set of legal indices to capture a range of potential conflicts between different stakeholders of the firm. It supplements the analysis of the law on the books with an analysis of the effectiveness of legal institutions. Our main finding is that the effectiveness of legal institutions has a much stronger impact on external finance than does the law on the books, despite legal change that has substantially improved shareholder and creditor rights. This finding supports the proposition that legal transplants and extensive legal reforms are not sufficient for the evolution of effective legal and market institutions.
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Paper provided by Center for International Development at Harvard University in its series CID Working Papers with number
49.
Find related papers by JEL classification: G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets K22 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Corporation and Securities Law K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law O16 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment P51 - Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems - - - Comparative Analysis of Economic Systems
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Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silane & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1996.
"Law and Finance,"
NBER Working Papers
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Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1998.
"Law and Finance,"
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Asli Demirgüç-Kunt & Vojislav Maksimovic, 1998.
"Law, Finance, and Firm Growth,"
Journal of Finance,
American Finance Association, vol. 53(6), pages 2107-2137, December.
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Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997.
" A Survey of Corporate Governance,"
Journal of Finance,
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Other versions:
Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-De-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 1999.
"Corporate Ownership Around the World,"
Journal of Finance,
American Finance Association, vol. 54(2), pages 471-517, 04.
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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.) This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.