IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/pseptp/halshs-01802893.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Legal vs. economic explanations of the rise in bankruptcies in 19th century France‪
[La croissance du nombre de faillites en France au XIX e siècle : explications juridiques ou explications économiques ?]

Author

Listed:
  • Pierre-Cyrille Hautcoeur

    (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

  • Nadine Levratto

    (EconomiX - EconomiX - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEET - Centre d'études de l'emploi et du travail - CNAM - Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers [CNAM] - M.E.N.E.S.R. - Ministère de l'Education nationale, de l’Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche - Ministère du Travail, de l'Emploi et de la Santé)

Abstract

This paper aims at explaining the changes in the number of bankruptcies during the second part of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. We firstly study these changes in the perspective of the evolution of the French insolvency law; we then introduce a geographic dimension that we show to be very relevant. We indeed observe that the court of the Paris district is more tolerant than the others; however, this kind of use of the law will spread in the other courts until the reform in 1889 that creates the judicial liquidation. The spatial analysis permits us to show that the changes in the law do not explain the total variations of the total amount of bankruptcies. The local practices, the way judicial agents act and the changes in the firms' strategies are also essential in the explanation.

Suggested Citation

  • Pierre-Cyrille Hautcoeur & Nadine Levratto, 2017. "Legal vs. economic explanations of the rise in bankruptcies in 19th century France‪ [La croissance du nombre de faillites en France au XIX e siècle : explications juridiques ou explications économi," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-01802893, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:pseptp:halshs-01802893
    DOI: 10.4000/rei.6630
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01802893v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01802893v1/document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.4000/rei.6630?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/6824 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Lester, V. Markham, 1995. "Victorian Insolvency: Bankruptcy, Imprisonment for Debt, and Company Winding-up in Nineteenth-Century England," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198205180.
    3. Fridenson, Patrick, 2004. "Business Failure and the Agenda of Business History," Enterprise & Society, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(4), pages 562-582, December.
    4. repec:dau:papers:123456789/13599 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/6824 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. 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.
    7. Jérôme Sgard, 2006. "Do legal origins matter? The case of bankruptcy laws in Europe 1808-1914," Post-Print hal-01021354, HAL.
    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. repec:dau:papers:123456789/13599 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/6824 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Aron Balas & Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2009. "The Divergence of Legal Procedures," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 138-162, August.
    4. Sgard, Jérôme, 2016. "Courts at work: Bankruptcy statutes, majority rule and private contracting in England (17th–18th century)," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 450-460.
    5. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/6824 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Jérôme Sgard, 2006. "Do legal origins matter? The case of bankruptcy laws in Europe 1808-1914," Post-Print hal-01021354, HAL.
    7. James Foreman-Peck & Leslie Hannah, 2012. "Some Consequences of the Early Twentieth Century Divorce of Ownership from Control," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-864, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    8. le Bris, David, 2019. "Testing legal origins theory within France: Customary laws versus Roman code," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 1-30.
    9. Jérôme Sgard, 2006. "On Legal Origins and Brankruptcy Laws: the European Experience (1808-1914)," Working Papers hal-01065660, HAL.
    10. Guerriero, Carmine, 2016. "Endogenous legal traditions and economic outcomes," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 416-433.
    11. Jérôme Sgard, 2006. "Do legal origins matter? The case of bankruptcy laws in Europe 1808-1914," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-01021354, HAL.
    12. Le Bris, David, 2013. "Customary versus Civil Law within Old Regime France," MPRA Paper 52123, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Jérôme Sgard, 2006. "On Legal Origins and Brankruptcy Laws: the European Experience (1808-1914)," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-01065660, HAL.
    14. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/6824 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/6824 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Barua, Abheek & Kathuria, Rajat & Malik, Neha, 2016. "The Status of Financial Inclusion, Regulation, and Education in India," ADBI Working Papers 568, Asian Development Bank Institute.
    17. Haichao Fan & Xiang Gao, 2017. "Domestic Creditor Rights and External Private Debt," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(606), pages 2410-2440, November.
    18. Panicos Demetriades & David Fielding, 2012. "Information, Institutions, And Banking Sector Development In West Africa," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 50(3), pages 739-753, July.
    19. Eric Hilt, 2014. "History of American Corporate Governance: Law, Institutions, and Politics," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 1-21, December.
    20. Astudillo, Alfonso & Braun, Matías & Castañeda, Pablo, 2011. "The going public decision and the structure of equity markets," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(7), pages 1451-1470.
    21. Jin, Xiaoye, 2015. "Volatility transmission and volatility impulse response functions among the Greater China stock markets," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 43-58.
    22. Custódio, Cláudia & Ferreira, Miguel A. & Laureano, Luís, 2013. "Why are US firms using more short-term debt?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 182-212.
    23. Barry Eichengreen & Chitu Livia & Arnaud Mehl, 2014. "Stability or upheaval? The currency composition of international reserves in the long run," Globalization Institute Working Papers 201, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    24. Cong Minh Huynh & Nam Hoai Tran, 2023. "Financial development, income inequality, and institutional quality: A multi-dimensional analysis," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(2), pages 2242128-224, June.
    25. Diego Comin & Ramana Nanda, 2019. "Financial Development and Technology Diffusion," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 67(2), pages 395-419, June.

    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:hal:pseptp:halshs-01802893. 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: Caroline Bauer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.