IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hit/hitcei/2004-10.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

When No Law is Better than a Good Law

Author

Listed:
  • Bhattacharya, Utpal
  • Daouk, Hazem

Abstract

This paper argues, both theoretically and empirically, that sometimes no security law may be better than a good security law that is not enforced. The first part of the paper formalizes the sufficient conditions under which this happens for any law. The second part of the paper shows that a specific security law - the law prohibiting insider trading - may satisfy these conditions, which implies that our theory predicts that it is sometimes better not to have an insider trading law than to have an insider trading law but not enforce it. The third part of the paper takes this prediction to the data. We revisit the panel data set assembled by Bhattacharya and Daouk (2002), who showed that enforcement, not the mere existence, of insider trading laws reduced the cost of equity in a country. We find that the cost of equity actually rises when a country introduces an insider trading law, but does not enforce it.

Suggested Citation

  • Bhattacharya, Utpal & Daouk, Hazem, 2004. "When No Law is Better than a Good Law," CEI Working Paper Series 2004-10, Center for Economic Institutions, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
  • Handle: RePEc:hit:hitcei:2004-10
    Note: First version: June 2004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hermes-ir.lib.hit-u.ac.jp/hermes/ir/re/13899/wp2004-10a.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Harvey, Campbell R, 1991. "The World Price of Covariance Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(1), pages 111-157, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christelis, Dimitris & Georgarakos, Dimitris & Haliassos, Michael, 2008. "Economic integration and mature portfolios," CFS Working Paper Series 2008/05, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    2. Massa, Massimo & Schumacher, David, 2015. "Subcontracting in International Asset Management: New Evidence on Market Integration," CEPR Discussion Papers 10465, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Sen, Kaustav, 2009. "Earnings surprise and sophisticated investor preferences in India," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 1-19.
    4. Luzi Hail & Christian Leuz, 2006. "International Differences in the Cost of Equity Capital: Do Legal Institutions and Securities Regulation Matter?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(3), pages 485-531, June.
    5. Hooper, Vince & Sim, Ah Boon & Uppal, Asfandyar, 2009. "Governance and stock market performance," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 93-116, June.
    6. Buchanan, Bonnie G. & English II, Philip C. & Gordon, Rachel, 2011. "Emerging market benefits, investability and the rule of law," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 47-60, March.
    7. Lars Oxelheim & Trond Randøy & Arthur Stonehill, 2012. "What can international finance add to international strategy?," Chapters, in: Handbook of Research on International Strategic Management, chapter 12, pages 238-253, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Buchanan, Bonnie & English II, Philip C., 2007. "Law, finance, and emerging market returns," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 181-193, September.
    9. Lombardo, Davide & Pagano, Marco, 1999. "Legal Determinants of the Return on Equity," CEPR Discussion Papers 2275, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Daouk, Hazem & Lee, Charles M.C. & Ng, David, 2006. "Capital market governance: How do security laws affect market performance?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 560-593, June.
    11. Bekaert, Geert & Harvey, Campbell R., 2003. "Emerging markets finance," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 10(1-2), pages 3-56, February.
    12. Bhattacharya, Utpal & Daouk, Hazem & Welker, Michael, 2003. "The World Price of Earnings Opacity," Working Papers 127185, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    13. Lee, Kuan-Hui, 2011. "The world price of liquidity risk," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 136-161, January.
    14. Girard, Eric & Omran, Mohamed, 2007. "What are the risks when investing in thin emerging equity markets: Evidence from the Arab world," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 102-123, February.
    15. Chiou, Wan-Jiun Paul, 2009. "Benefits of international diversification with investment constraints: An over-time perspective," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 93-110, April.
    16. Ryan Felushko & Eric Santor, 2006. "The International Monetary Fund's Balance-Sheet and Credit Risk," Staff Working Papers 06-21, Bank of Canada.
    17. Gilberto E. Arce & Edgar Robles C., 2005. "Corporate Governance in Costa Rica," Research Department Publications 3218, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    18. Marco Botta & Luca Colombo, 2016. "Macroeconomic and Institutional Determinants of Capital Structure Decisions," DISCE - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza def038, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    19. Klapper, Leora F. & Love, Inessa, 2004. "Corporate governance, investor protection, and performance in emerging markets," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 10(5), pages 703-728, November.
    20. Díez-Esteban, José María & Farinha, Jorge Bento & García-Gómez, Conrado Diego, 2016. "The role of institutional investors in propagating the 2007 financial crisis in Southern Europe," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 439-454.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • K22 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Business and Securities Law
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hit:hitcei:2004-10. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Reiko Suzuki (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cehitjp.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.