Date Published:
Mar 1, 2008
Abstract:
Does a legal tradition adopted in the distant past constrain a country’s ability to provide the protection that investors
need for financial markets to develop? This paper contributes to the literature that studies the connection between
law and finance by looking at the relationship between legal origin and the development of bond markets. The paper
shows that there is too much variation over time in terms of bond market size, creditor protections, and court
enforcement of bond contracts to assume that the adoption of a legal system can constrain future financial
development. The paper examines in detail the evolution of bond markets in Brazil, a French civil law country, and
provides preliminary results of similar variation for a small cross-section of countries.
Notes:
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