IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/107861.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Judicial Efficiency and Economic Growth: Evidence based on EU data

Author

Listed:
  • Rizos, Anastasios
  • Kapopoulos, Panayotis

Abstract

The growth-enhancing property of a well-functioned judicial system is documented on the back of the safeguarding of property rights and legal investor protection, the well-functioning of financial markets, the support to entrepreneurship and the upholding of the firm growth. We investigate the effects of judicial efficiency on economic growth, using a new dataset over the period 2010-2018 drawn by the EU Justice Scoreboard study. More specifically, we estimate a static growth equation controlling for alternative judicial efficiency measures. Our findings corroborate that the inefficiencies in the operation of judicial systems pose obstacles to economic growth, and consequently, positive developments in judicial efficiency can be growth enhancing. Specifically, inefficiencies in the operation of judicial systems, measured alternatively as (a) lengthier court proceedings, (b) lower rates of clearance of accumulated unresolved cases, (c) increasing burden of pending cases and (d) a high inflow of new cases, all undermine economic growth. Our results justify the further adoption of judicial reforms in European Union members, that strengthen the enforcement of private contracts, incentivizing the domestic and external investment decisions and supporting the European economies to achieve and sustain robust growth rates. Finally, we find that civil origin legal systems, which are characterized by a higher degree of formalism in judicial procedures relative to common law origin systems, hinder economic growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Rizos, Anastasios & Kapopoulos, Panayotis, 2021. "Judicial Efficiency and Economic Growth: Evidence based on EU data," MPRA Paper 107861, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:107861
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/107861/1/MPRA_paper_107861.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrei Shleifer & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Rafael La Porta, 2008. "The Economic Consequences of Legal Origins," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(2), pages 285-332, June.
    2. Agnès Bénassy‐Quéré & Maylis Coupet & Thierry Mayer, 2007. "Institutional Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(5), pages 764-782, May.
    3. La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 1999. "The Quality of Government," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 222-279, April.
    4. Paolo Buonanno & Matteo M. Galizzi, 2009. "Advocatus, et non latro? Testing the supplier-induced demand hypothesis for Italian courts of justice," Working Papers 0914, University of Brescia, Department of Economics.
    5. Acemoglu, Daron & Johnson, Simon & Robinson, James A., 2005. "Institutions as a Fundamental Cause of Long-Run Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 385-472, Elsevier.
    6. Ross Levine, 2005. "Law, Endowments and Property Rights," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(3), pages 61-88, Summer.
    7. Jappelli, Tullio & Pagano, Marco & Bianco, Magda, 2005. "Courts and Banks: Effects of Judicial Enforcement on Credit Markets," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(2), pages 223-244, April.
    8. Simeon Djankov & Oliver Hart & Caralee McLiesh & Andrei Shleifer, 2008. "Debt Enforcement around the World," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(6), pages 1105-1149, December.
    9. Amanda Carmignani & Silvia Giacomelli, 2010. "Too many lawyers? Litigation in Italian civil courts," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 745, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    10. Luc Laeven & Christopher Woodruff, 2007. "The Quality of the Legal System, Firm Ownership, and Firm Size," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(4), pages 601-614, November.
    11. Feld, Lars P. & Voigt, Stefan, 2003. "Economic growth and judicial independence: cross-country evidence using a new set of indicators," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 497-527, September.
    12. Daniela Fabbri, 2010. "Law Enforcement and Firm Financing: Theory and Evidence," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 8(4), pages 776-816, June.
    13. Robert J. Barro, 2003. "Determinants of Economic Growth in a Panel of Countries," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 4(2), pages 231-274, November.
    14. Levine, Ross, 1998. "The Legal Environment, Banks, and Long-Run Economic Growth," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 30(3), pages 596-613, August.
    15. Paolo Buonanno & Matteo M. Galizzi, 2009. "Advocatus, et non latro? Testing the supplier-induced demand hypothesis for Italian courts of justice," Working Papers 0914, University of Brescia, Department of Economics.
    16. Nuno Garoupa & Natalia Jorgensen & Pablo Vázquez, 2008. "Assessing the Argument for Specialized Courts: Evidence from Family Courts in Spain," Working Papers 2008-16, FEDEA.
    17. Jun Qian & Philip E. Strahan, 2007. "How Laws and Institutions Shape Financial Contracts: The Case of Bank Loans," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(6), pages 2803-2834, December.
    18. Beenstock, Michael & Haitovsky, Yoel, 2004. "Does the appointment of judges increase the output of the judiciary?," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 351-369, September.
    19. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    20. Kee‐Hong Bae & Vidhan K. Goyal, 2009. "Creditor Rights, Enforcement, and Bank Loans," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(2), pages 823-860, April.
    21. Bernd Hayo & Stefan Voigt, 2008. "The Relevance of Judicial Procedure for Economic Growth," CESifo Working Paper Series 2514, CESifo.
    22. Philippe Aghion, 2005. "Growth and Institutions," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 32(1), pages 3-18, March.
    23. Beck, Thorsten & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Maksimovic, Vojislav, 2006. "The influence of financial and legal institutions on firm size," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(11), pages 2995-3015, November.
    24. Christensen, Robert K. & Szmer, John, 2012. "Examining the efficiency of the U.S. courts of appeals: Pathologies and prescriptions," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 30-37.
    25. Roberto Ippoliti & Alessandro Melcarne & Giovanni Ramello, 2015. "Judicial efficiency and entrepreneurs’ expectations on the reliability of European legal systems," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 75-94, August.
    26. Giuliana Palumbo & Giulia Giupponi & Luca Nunziata & Juan S. Mora Sanguinetti, 2013. "The Economics of Civil Justice: New Cross-country Data and Empirics," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1060, OECD Publishing.
    27. Buscaglia, Edgardo & Ulen, Thomas, 1997. "A quantitative assessment of the efficiency of the judicial sector in Latin America," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 275-291, June.
    28. Di Vita, Giuseppe, 2010. "Production of laws and delays in court decisions," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 276-281, September.
    29. Daniela Fabbri, 2010. "Law Enforcement and Firm Financing: Theory and Evidence," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 776-816, June.
    30. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    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. Comi, Simona & Grasseni, Mara & Resmini, Laura, 2021. "Can judicial efficiency improve territorial attractiveness to FDI? The Italian experience," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    2. Falavigna, Greta & Ippoliti, Roberto, 2023. "SMEs’ behavior under financial constraints: An empirical investigation on the legal environment and the substitution effect with tax arrears," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    3. Juan S. Mora-Sanguinetti & Marta Martínez-Matute & Miguel García-Posada, 2017. "Credit, crisis and contract enforcement: evidence from the Spanish loan market," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 361-383, October.
    4. Ferrando, Annalisa & Moro, Andrea & Maresch, Daniela, 2015. "Creditor protection, judicial enforcement and credit access," Working Paper Series 1829, European Central Bank.
    5. Giacomelli, Silvia & Menon, Carlo, 2012. "Firm size and judicial efficiency in Italy: evidence from the neighbour's tribunal," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 58339, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Arnaud Deseau & Adam Levai & Michèle Schmiegelow, 2019. "Access to Justice and Economic Development: Evidence from an International Panel Dataset," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2019009, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    7. Vincenzo Pezone, 2023. "The Real Effects of Judicial Enforcement," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 27(3), pages 889-933.
    8. Beck, T.H.L., 2010. "Legal Institutions and Economic Development," Other publications TiSEM 8aa07b48-ce55-4cf6-8754-7, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    9. Silvia Giacomelli & Carlo Menon, 2017. "Does weak contract enforcement affect firm size? Evidence from the neighbour’s court," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 17(6), pages 1251-1282.
    10. Greta Falavigna & Roberto Ippoliti, 2018. "Industrial spatial dynamics, financial health and bankruptcy: evidence from Italian manufacturing industry," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 45(4), pages 533-554, December.
    11. Marilene Lorizio & Antonia Rosa Gurrieri, 2017. "Resilient Smes, Institutions And Justice. Evidence In Italy," Review of Economic and Business Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, issue 20, pages 131-155, December.
    12. Roberto Ippoliti & Massimiliano Vatiero, 2014. "An analysis of how 2002 judicial reorganisation has impacted on the performance of the First Instance Courts (Preture) in Ticino," IdEP Economic Papers 1408, USI Università della Svizzera italiana.
    13. Daniel Dejuán & Juan S. Mora-Sanguinetti, 2019. "Quality of enforcement and investment decisions. Firm-level evidence from Spain," Working Papers 1927, Banco de España.
    14. Pezone, Vincenzo, 2023. "The real effects of judicial enforcement," Other publications TiSEM 08176032-a171-4f23-8dac-e, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    15. Masuch, Klaus & Anderton, Robert & Setzer, Ralph & Benalal, Nicholai, 2018. "Structural policies in the euro area," Occasional Paper Series 210, European Central Bank.
    16. Ewelina Mruk & Inmaculada Aguiar-Díaz & Maria Victoria Ruiz-Mallorquí, 2019. "Use of formal insolvency procedure and judicial efficiency in Spain," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 435-470, June.
    17. Gur Aminadav & Elias Papaioannou, 2020. "Corporate Control around the World," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(3), pages 1191-1246, June.
    18. Giulia Canzian & Antonella Rita Ferrara, 2021. "Judicial Efficiency and Banks Credit Risk Exposure," CESifo Working Paper Series 8930, CESifo.
    19. Papaioannou, Elias & Karatza, Stavroula, 2018. "The Greek Justice System: Collapse and Reform," CEPR Discussion Papers 12731, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Kalyvas, Antonios Nikolaos & Mamatzakis, Emmanuel, 2014. "Does business regulation matter for banks in the European Union?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 278-324.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    judicial efficiency; economic growth; disposition time; clearance rate; caseload;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • C26 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation
    • K40 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - General
    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth

    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:pra:mprapa:107861. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.