Do legal origins matter? The case of bankruptcy laws in Europe 1808 1914

Since the early 1997 paper by La Porta et al., a growing body of research has argued that legal origins have a country-specific, time-invariant effect on property rights and economic development. Following the methodology of La Porta et al., an original database of 51 bankruptcy laws has been built: it ranges over 15 European countries and more than a hundred years (1808 1914), and summarises how the rights and incentives of the parties were defined as the procedures unfolded. The first conclusion is that, over the entire period, all legal traditions strongly protected creditors rights; only English law comes out prima facie as less protective. Second, evidence suggests that the evolution of these laws was influenced less by their past than by continent-wide trends, arguably linked to capitalist development. An early nineteenth century model thus saw heavy repression of failed debtors and highly regulated judicial procedures. After a transition period from the late 1860s to the late 1880s, prison for debt was abandoned, rehabilitation became easier, and the parties were given much more room to recontract on property rights.

Enterprise Adjustment and the Role of Bank Credit in Russia: Evidence from a 420 Firms Qualitative Survey

This paper is based on a 1996 industrial survey of 420 Russian firms' actual position, as opposed to their expectations and declared intentions. Factor analysis and ordered Probit techniques are used to test relationships between the various responses. The main conclusions are: 1) profit depends upon real productive performances, and, to a lesser extent, on financial discipline; 2) the demand for credit comes mainly from the worst-off firms or those already indebted; 3) the actual distribution of bank credit is allocated mostly to distressed firms, with poor performance and weak financial position.

Are Monetary Rules and Reforms Complements or Substitutes? A Panel Analysis for the World Versus OECD Countries

This paper investigates the relationship between the exchange rate regime and the degree of structural reforms using panel data techniques. We look at a broad sample of countries (the "world sample") and also an OECD sample. Our main findings suggest that adopting a fixed exchange rate rule is positively correlated with the degree of overall structural reforms and the trade component. The paper also highlights the fact that considering a heterogeneous panel of countries as opposed to a limited does not matter for this results