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Law and Finance c. 1900

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  • Aldo Musacchio

Abstract

How persistent are the effects of legal institutions adopted or inherited in the distant past? A substantial literature argues that legal origins have persistent effects that explain clear differences in investor protections and financial development around the world today (La Porta et al, 1998, 1999 and passim). This paper examines the persistence of the effects of legal origins by examining new estimates of different indicators of financial development in more than 20 countries in 1900 and 1913. The evidence presented does not yield robust results that can sustain the hypothesis of persistence effects of legal origin, but it is not powerful enough to reject it either. Then the paper examines if there were systematic differences in the extent of investor protections across countries, since that is the main channel through which legal origin affects financial development, and shows that all the evidence supports the idea of relative convergence in corporate governance practices across legal families circa 1900. The paper concludes that, if the evidence presented is representative, the variation observed in financial development around the world today is likely a product of events of the twentieth century rather than a consequence of long-term (and persistent) differences occasioned by legal traditions.

Suggested Citation

  • Aldo Musacchio, 2010. "Law and Finance c. 1900," NBER Working Papers 16216, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16216
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Turner, John D., 2014. "Financial history and financial economics," QUCEH Working Paper Series 14-03, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    2. Alvaro Aguirre, 2017. "Contracting Institutions and Economic Growth," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 24, pages 192-217, March.
    3. Hans Degryse & Thomas Lambert & Armin Schwienbacher, 2018. "The Political Economy of Financial Systems: Evidence from Suffrage Reforms in the Last Two Centuries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(611), pages 1433-1475, June.
    4. 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.
    5. Leslie Hannah, 2015. "A global corporate census: publicly traded and close companies in 1910," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 68(2), pages 548-573, May.
    6. Dmitry Kuvshinov & Kaspar Zimmermann, 2018. "The Big Bang: Stock Market Capitalization in the Long Run," Working Papers 0136, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    7. Graeme G. Acheson & Gareth Campbell & John D. Turner & Nadia Vanteeva, 2015. "Corporate ownership and control in Victorian Britain," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 68(3), pages 911-936, August.
    8. Pavel Ševcík, 2012. "Financial Contracts and the Political Economy of Investor Protection," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 163-197, October.
    9. Kuvshinov, Dmitry & Zimmermann, Kaspar, 2020. "The Big Bang: Stock Market Capitalization in the Long Run," CEPR Discussion Papers 14468, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Kuvshinov, Dmitry & Zimmermann, Kaspar, 2018. "The Big Bang: Stock Market Capitalization in the Long Run," MPRA Paper 88581, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Kuvshinov, Dmitry & Zimmermann, Kaspar, 2018. "The big bang: Stock market capitalization in the long run," IBF Paper Series 02-18, IBF – Institut für Bank- und Finanzgeschichte / Institute for Banking and Financial History, Frankfurt am Main.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance
    • G33 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Bankruptcy; Liquidation
    • K22 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Business and Securities Law
    • N20 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - General, International, or Comparative

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