IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/bofrdp/rdp2007_001.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Phoenix rising: legal reforms and changes in valuations in Finland during the economic crisis

Author

Listed:
  • Korkeamäki, Timo
  • Koskinen, Yrjö
  • Takalo, Tuomas

Abstract

Finland experienced an extremely severe economic depression in the early 1990s.In the midst of this crisis, significant new legislation was passed that increased supervisory powers official market regulators and reformed bankruptcy procedures significantly decreasing the protection of creditors.We show that the introduction of these new laws resulted in positive abnormal stock returns.The new laws also lead to increases in firms'Tobin's q, especially for more levered firms.In contrast to previous studies, our results also suggest that public supervision of financial markets fosters rather than hampers financial market development.

Suggested Citation

  • Korkeamäki, Timo & Koskinen, Yrjö & Takalo, Tuomas, 2007. "Phoenix rising: legal reforms and changes in valuations in Finland during the economic crisis," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 1/2007, Bank of Finland.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:bofrdp:rdp2007_001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/212059/1/bof-rdp2007-001.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1992. "Liquidation Values and Debt Capacity: A Market Equilibrium Approach," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1343-1366, September.
    2. Javier Suarez & Oren Sussman, 2007. "Financial distress, bankruptcy law and the business cycle," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 5-35, January.
    3. Katharina Pistor & Martin Raiser & Stanislaw Gelfer, 2000. "Law and Finance in Transition Economies," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 8(2), pages 325-368, July.
    4. La Porta, Rafael & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1997. "Legal Determinants of External Finance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(3), pages 1131-1150, July.
    5. 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.
    6. Ari Hyytinen & Iikka Kuosa & Tuomas Takalo, 2003. "Law or Finance: Evidence from Finland," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 59-89, July.
    7. Patrick Bolton & Howard Rosenthal, 2002. "Political Intervention in Debt Contracts," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(5), pages 1103-1134, October.
    8. Cornelli, Francesca & Felli, Leonardo, 1997. "Ex-ante efficiency of bankruptcy procedures," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(3-5), pages 475-485, April.
    9. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez‐De‐Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert Vishny, 2002. "Investor Protection and Corporate Valuation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(3), pages 1147-1170, June.
    10. S. Abraham Ravid & Stefan Sundgren, 1998. "The Comparative Efficiency of Small-Firm Bankruptcies: A Study of the US and Finnish Bankruptcy Codes," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 27(4), Winter.
    11. Paul Gompers & Joy Ishii & Andrew Metrick, 2003. "Corporate Governance and Equity Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 107-156.
    12. Karpoff, Jonathan M. & Malatesta, Paul H., 1989. "The wealth effects of second-generation state takeover legislation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 291-322, December.
    13. Marco Pagano & Paolo Volpin, 2006. "Alfred Marshall Lecture Shareholder Protection, Stock Market Development, and Politics," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(2-3), pages 315-341, 04-05.
    14. Stefan Sundgren, 1998. "Does a Reorganization Law Improve the Efficiency of the Insolvency Law? The Finnish Experience," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 6(2), pages 177-198, September.
    15. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez‐De‐Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2006. "What Works in Securities Laws?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 1-32, February.
    16. Marco Pagano & Paolo F. Volpin, 2005. "The Political Economy of Corporate Governance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1005-1030, September.
    17. Kane, Edward J. & Klingebiel, Daniela, 2004. "Alternatives to blanket guarantees for containing a systemic crisis," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 31-63, September.
    18. Katharina Pistor, 2000. "Patterns of legal change: shareholder and creditor rights in transition economies," Working Papers 49, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Office of the Chief Economist.
    19. Easterbrook, Frank H., 1990. "Is corporate bankruptcy efficient?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 411-417, October.
    20. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    21. Seppo Honkapohja & Erkki Koskela, 1999. "The economic crisis of the 1990s in Finland," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 14(29), pages 400-436.
    22. Barth, James R. & Caprio, Gerard Jr. & Levine, Ross, 2004. "Bank regulation and supervision: what works best?," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 205-248, April.
    23. Steven M. Fazzari & R. Glenn Hubbard & Bruce C. Petersen, 1988. "Financing Constraints and Corporate Investment," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 19(1), pages 141-206.
    24. Giannetti, Mariassunta & Koskinen, Yrjö, 2010. "Investor Protection, Equity Returns, and Financial Globalization," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(1), pages 135-168, February.
    25. Bolton, Patrick & Scharfstein, David S, 1996. "Optimal Debt Structure and the Number of Creditors," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(1), pages 1-25, February.
    26. S. Abraham Ravid & S. Sundgren, 1998. "The Comparative Efficiency of Small-Firm Bankruptcies: A Study of the US and Finnish Bankruptcy Codes," New York University, Leonard N. Stern School Finance Department Working Paper Seires 98-054, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business-.
    27. Enrico C. Perotti & Ernst-Ludwig von Thadden, 2006. "The Political Economy of Corporate Control and Labor Rents," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(1), pages 145-174, February.
    28. Honohan, Patrick & Klingebiel, Daniela, 2003. "The fiscal cost implications of an accommodating approach to banking crises," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(8), pages 1539-1560, August.
    29. Edward Glaeser & Simon Johnson & Andrei Shleifer, 2001. "Coase Versus the Coasians," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(3), pages 853-899.
    30. La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 2000. "Investor protection and corporate governance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1-2), pages 3-27.
    31. John J. Binder, 1985. "Measuring the Effects of Regulation with Stock Price Data," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 16(2), pages 167-183, Summer.
    32. Barth,James R. & Caprio,Gerard & Levine,Ross, 2008. "Rethinking Bank Regulation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521709309, January.
    33. Clas Bergström & Theodore Eisenberg & Stefan Sundgren, 2004. "On the Design of Efficient Priority Rules for Secured Creditors: Empirical Evidence from A Change in Law," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 273-297, December.
    34. Scott, Jonathan A. & Smith, Terence C., 1986. "The effect of the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978 on small business loan pricing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 119-140, May.
    35. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:6:p:2107-2137 is not listed on IDEAS
    36. Raghuram Rajan & Luigi Zingales, 2006. "Making Capitalism Work for Everyone," World Economics, World Economics, 1 Ivory Square, Plantation Wharf, London, United Kingdom, SW11 3UE, vol. 7(1), pages 1-10, January.
    37. Brown, Stephen J. & Warner, Jerold B., 1985. "Using daily stock returns : The case of event studies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 3-31, March.
    38. Kang, Jun-Koo & Stulz, Rene M., 1997. "Why is there a home bias? An analysis of foreign portfolio equity ownership in Japan," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 3-28, October.
    39. Lars Jonung & Hans Tson Söderström & Joakim Stymne, 1996. "Depression in the north - boom and bust in Sweden and Finland, 1985-93," Finnish Economic Papers, Finnish Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 55-71, Spring.
    40. Giancarlo Corsetti & Nouriel Roubini, 1996. "Budget deficits, public sector solvency and political biases in fiscal policy : a case study of Finland," Finnish Economic Papers, Finnish Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 18-36, Spring.
    41. 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.
    42. Ross Levine, 2001. "International Financial Liberalization and Economic Growth," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(4), pages 688-702, November.
    43. Schwert, G William, 1981. "Using Financial Data to Measure Effects of Regulation," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(1), pages 121-158, April.
    44. Sorge, Marco & Virolainen, Kimmo, 2006. "A comparative analysis of macro stress-testing methodologies with application to Finland," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 2(2), pages 113-151, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sadeghi, Ali & Kibler, Ewald, 2022. "Do bankruptcy laws matter for entrepreneurship? A Synthetic Control Method analysis of a bankruptcy reform in Finland," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 18(C).
    2. Korkeamäki, Timo & Rainio, Elina & Takalo, Tuomas, 2010. "Law and stock markets : evidence from an emerging market," Research Discussion Papers 1/2010, Bank of Finland.
    3. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2010_001 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Korkeamäki, Timo & Rainio, Elina & Takalo, Tuomas, 2010. "Law and stock markets: evidence from an emerging market," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 1/2010, Bank of Finland.

    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. Korkeamaki, Timo & Koskinen, Yrjo & Takalo, Tuomas, 2007. "Phoenix rising: Legal reforms and changes in valuations in Finland during the economic crisis," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 33-58, April.
    2. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2007_001 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Steen Thomsen & Frederik Vinten, 2014. "Delistings and the costs of governance: a study of European stock exchanges 1996–2004," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 18(3), pages 793-833, August.
    4. Ari Hyytinen & Iikka Kuosa & Tuomas Takalo, 2003. "Law or Finance: Evidence from Finland," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 59-89, July.
    5. Lucian A. Bebchuk & Michael S. Weisbach, 2012. "The State of Corporate Governance Research," Springer Books, in: Sabri Boubaker & Bang Dang Nguyen & Duc Khuong Nguyen (ed.), Corporate Governance, edition 127, pages 325-346, Springer.
    6. Jing Zhou & On Kit Tam & Wei Lan, 2016. "Solving agency problems in Chinese family firms – A law and finance perspective," Asian Business & Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 15(1), pages 57-82, February.
    7. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2010_001 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Bonfiglioli, Alessandra, 2012. "Investor protection and income inequality: Risk sharing vs risk taking," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 92-104.
    9. Thorsten Beck & Ross Levine, 2008. "Legal Institutions and Financial Development," Springer Books, in: Claude Ménard & Mary M. Shirley (ed.), Handbook of New Institutional Economics, chapter 11, pages 251-278, Springer.
    10. Ronald Fischer, 2008. "Economic performance, creditor protection and labor inflexibility," Documentos de Trabajo 250, Centro de Economía Aplicada, Universidad de Chile.
    11. 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.
    12. Hyytinen, Ari & Kuosa, Ilkka & Takalo, Tuomas, 2001. "Law or Finance: Evidence from Finland (Revised version 25.09.2002))," Discussion Papers 775, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    13. Korkeamäki, Timo & Rainio, Elina & Takalo, Tuomas, 2010. "Law and stock markets : evidence from an emerging market," Research Discussion Papers 1/2010, Bank of Finland.
    14. Burkart, Mike & Panunzi, Fausto, 2006. "Agency conflicts, ownership concentration, and legal shareholder protection," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 1-31, January.
    15. Hyytinen, Ari & Takalo, Tuomas, 2008. "Investor protection and business creation," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 113-122, June.
    16. Korkeamäki, Timo & Rainio, Elina & Takalo, Tuomas, 2010. "Law and stock markets: evidence from an emerging market," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 1/2010, Bank of Finland.
    17. Djankov, Simeon & Glaeser, Edward & La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei, 2003. "The new comparative economics," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 595-619, December.
    18. Agrawal, Ashwini K., 2009. "The Impact of Investor Protection Law on Corporate Policy: Evidence from the Blue Sky Laws," MPRA Paper 16351, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Chen, Kevin C.W. & Chen, Zhihong & Wei, K.C. John, 2009. "Legal protection of investors, corporate governance, and the cost of equity capital," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 273-289, June.
    20. Arturo Bris & Christos Cabolis, 2002. "Corporate Governance Convergence by Contract: Evidence from Cross-Border Mergers," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm293, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Jan 2003.
    21. Klapper, Leora F & Laeven, Luc & Love, Inessa, 2005. "What drives corporate governance? Firm-level evidence from Eastern Europe," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3600, The World Bank.
    22. Djankov, Simeon & La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei, 2008. "The law and economics of self-dealing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3), pages 430-465, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    corporate governance; bankruptcy; financial supervision; shareholder protection; creditors' rights; corporate valuations; political economy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • K22 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Business and Securities 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:zbw:bofrdp:rdp2007_001. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bofgvfi.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.