Financial System Size in Transition Economies: The Effect of Legal Origin

Gorton and Winton (1998) link the size of the banking system in transition economies to financial stability. We provide empirical evidence consistent with their notion that the size of the financial system will be smaller in these countries. This effect holds even after controlling for the effect of rule of law and/or legal origin, and other relevant variables. Transition economy status, thus adds additional explanatory power to traditional law and finance explanations of financial development. Classification of transition economies by legal origin reveals that Russian legal origin has a strong negative effect on financial development. Regression analysis shows claims on the private sector/gross domestic product (GDP) to be 46 to 60 percentage points lower in the countries of the former Soviet Union, and 23 to 39 percentage points lower in non-Soviet transition economies compared to countries of English legal origin. There is a positive relation between claims on the private sector and the rule of law for a broad cross section of countries.     

Financial development,institutions and banks

This paper presents a framework for understanding the interactions between political and legal institutions, property rights protection, and their implications for financial development. Whereas the literature has answered questions on why some countries lag behind in terms of financial and economic development, the current study suggests how to get around some institutional attributes to spearhead financial intermediation and economic growth through a set of institutional, information, and banking reforms. It finds little support that common law legal heritage is more suitable than French civil law for some key features of financial development. It concludes that types of institutional and market reforms are more relevant to financial intermediation than legal systems. It proposes some ways forward to increase financial intermediation; and expects, over the long run, the proposed approach to financial development to be beneficial for a number of developing countries.     

The effects on financial statements of the litigation cost rule in a civil action for negligence against the auditor

The litigation cost rule relates to which of the two parties in a civil lawsuit has to pay the legal costs. In those countries where the American system applies, each has to pay their own legal costs. In most other countries, the British system applies and the loser pays all the legal costs. By means of a single person decision-theoretic model, I examine the effects of this on auditing and financial statements under certainty and uncertainty conditions. Generally, the American system has the effect of restraining shareholders from suing unless they are able to cover their legal costs, thereby providing scope for under- or over-statements, depending on management’s wishes. This scope is denied under the British system and, as a result, audited financial statements will not be similarly biased.     

Legal Determinants of External Finance

Using a sample of 49 countries, we show that countries with poorer investor protections, measured by both the character of legal rules and the quality of law enforcement, have smaller and narrower capital markets. These findings apply to both equity and debt markets. In particular, French civil law countries have both the weakest investor protections and the least developed capital markets, especially as compared to common law countries.     

Are Legal Families Related to Financial Reporting Quality?

A large body of financial accounting research explores the quality of accounting in different countries. An important assumption in most of that research is that common law provides a firmer foundation for good accounting transparency than civil law. Researchers usually regress their proxy for accounting quality on an indicator variable that designates the firm's country as a common or civil law jurisdiction (along with other regressors). But what is the support for that nearly universal assumption? This study addresses that question. It traces the distinctions made by legal scholars that characterize the two ‘families’. It analyzes La Porta et al. (1998), which is the nearly universal citation to support the civil/common dummy, and assesses the design and development of research designs that use law in accounting studies. It concludes that the use of the civil/common distinction as applied in accounting studies cannot be supported, and offers suggestions for how to better investigate the ways in which the law interacts with financial reporting.     

Private credit in 129 countries

We investigate cross-country determinants of private credit, using new data on legal creditor rights and private and public credit registries in 129 countries. Both creditor protection through the legal system and information-sharing institutions are associated with higher ratios of private credit to gross domestic product, but the former is relatively more important in the richer countries. An analysis of legal reforms shows that credit rises after improvements in creditor rights and in information sharing. Creditor rights are remarkably stable over time, contrary to the hypothesis that legal rules are converging. Finally, legal origins are an important determinant of both creditor rights and information-sharing institutions. The analysis suggests that public credit registries, which are primarily a feature of French civil law countries, benefit private credit markets in developing countries.     

The Legal Origins of Financial Development: Evidence from the Shanghai Concessions

The primary challenge to assessing the legal origins view of comparative financial development is identifying exogenous changes in legal systems. We assemble new data on Shanghai's British and French concessions between 1845 and 1936. Two regime changes altered British and French legal jurisdiction over their respective concessions. By examining the changing application of different legal traditions to adjacent neighborhoods within the same city and controlling for military, economic, and political characteristics, we offer new evidence consistent with the legal origins view: the financial development advantage in the British concession widened after Western legal jurisdiction intensified and narrowed after it abated.     

Privatization,financial development,property rights and growth

This study analyzes how prevailing institutional arrangements i.e., property rights, contracting rights, political institutions, and corporate governance practices affect privatized firms’ performance, capital markets development, and economic growth. Most of the studies surveyed show that privatization enhances privatized firms performance, efficiency, and profitability, which percolates to economic growth. Privatized firms performed better in countries with better regulatory and legal frameworks. Partial privatization may be beneficial in countries with weak institutions, namely, the French civil law countries. The stronger the economic and the governing institutions, the easier it is for privatized firms to thrive and contribute to economic growth. Overall, privatization allows firms to achieve improved efficiency while driving the development of the financial sector.     

Is current institutional quality linked to legal origins and disease endowments? Evidence from Africa

This paper empirically assesses if and to what extent cross-country differences in institutions inherited from the past affect current institutional quality in Africa. Specifically, the work evaluates if legal origins and disease endowments explain cross-country differences in the quality of contemporary institutions that are widely considered to be important for financial system development and other economic outcomes, such as those related to creditor rights protection and the credit information infrastructure, as well as the judicial, legal property and insolvency systems. Empirical tests are carried out on a sample of 46 African former European colonies with data on current institutional quality from 2004 to 2013. The findings reveal that the legal origins hypothesis receives strong support in the data: historical factors, rooted in legal origins, have long-lasting effects on current institutional quality in the African context. Mixed evidence is instead found for the endowment view.     

CAN STOCK MARKET LIBERALIZATION IN EMERGING ECONOMIES MITIGATE LEGAL SYSTEMS DEFICIENCIES?

We document positive valuation effects around the time of stock market liberalization. We find that the valuation effects are larger for countries with civil law traditions compared with countries with common law origins. Similarly, we find that countries with weaker shareholder protections exhibit greater market valuation increases compared with countries with stronger shareholder protections. The results reinforce the importance of country legal systems and of shareholder protections in determining the quality of corporate governance systems and financial market outcomes. The findings suggest that stock market liberalization may mitigate deficiencies in the existing institutional environments not supportive of effective corporate governance systems.     

Value relevance of earnings: Evidence from Middle Eastern and North African Countries

Researchers as well as regulators are increasingly more interested in enhancing their understanding of the factors that influence value relevance of reported earnings in financial statements. In the light of globalization and increased exposure to international accounting practices, a better comprehension of factors contributing to or reducing value relevance of earnings is essential. This paper investigates the value relevance of earnings and its components for a number of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries. Additionally, the paper examines how differences in levels of mandated disclosures, source of accounting standards, and legal systems moderate the informativeness of earnings to investors. We find that mandated disclosure and source of accounting standard, (especially non-governmental source) are positively associated with earnings informativeness. Additionally, MENA countries with French civil law and systems have lower value relevance relative to countries in our sample with English and related legal codes. Further, the firms that have adopted international financial reporting standards have higher value relevance than firms in MENA countries which adhere to local standards.     

Catering effects in corporate dividend policy: The international evidence

This study tests for the international presence of dividend catering across a sample of twenty-three countries. We find evidence of catering among firms incorporated in common law countries but not for those in civil law nations. Catering persists even after controlling for the effect of the firm’s lifecycle. We conclude that when the legal regime and its accompanying set of investor protections permit, investors force dividends from managers, but they also attempt to extract such payouts indirectly by placing a high value on dividend paying firms. The relative failure of civil law firms to cater might be explained by idiosyncratic behaviors in the consumption of the private benefits of control or a lack of interest in responding to temporary market misevaluations of their equity.     

Finance–Growth Nexus: New Insights from the West African Region

This article examines the impact of financial development on economic growth in the West African region accounting for both structural breaks and cross-sectional dependency. Although the panel data study reveals that financial development has positive impact on economic growth in the entire West African region, the disaggregated data analysis discovers that variations in financial development can only explain variations in economic growth in about 75% of the countries in West Africa. This study has succeeded in revealing the countries where finance accelerates growth and countries where it does not. The weak impact of finance on growth in some of the countries could be due to low income level, low level of financial development, weak institutions, macroeconomic instability, and high inflation rates. Knowing where finance spurs growth and where it does not is fundamental for policymaking.     

The Impact of Legal and Political Institutions on Equity Trading Costs: A Cross-Country Analysis

We conjecture that macro-level institutions affect equity tradingcosts through their impact on information risk and investorparticipation. In a study of trading costs for 412 NYSE-listedAmerican Depository Receipts (ADRs) from 44 countries, we findthat, after controlling for firm-level determinants of tradingcosts, effective spreads and price impact of trades are significantlylower for stocks from countries with better ratings for judicialefficiency, accounting standards, and political stability. Tradingcosts are significantly higher for stocks from French civillaw countries than from common law countries. Overall, we concludethat improvements in legal and political institutions will lowerthe cost of liquidity in financial markets.     

经济转型时期的法制与金融发展——基于中国的实证研究

法与金融理论认为法律是金融体系发展的重要制度因素.我国转型时期的金融发展正经历着深刻的体制改革,需要法律制度对金融改革的支持以及对改革成果的保护.所以法律制度时金融发展进程有着重要影响,它们的内在关系是一项重要的研究课题.文章设计立法效率和司法效率两个指标来代表我国法律制度建设状况,用金融深化和金融市场化两个指标来反映金融发展程度,实证检验发现它们之间存在显著的协整关系和因果关系,我国在转型时期的法律制度建设对金融发展有着积极作用和深远影响.加强法制建设是促进我国金融发展的重要措施,尤其需要更多地关注如何提高立法效率;而金融发展如何由当前的强制性制度变迁向诱致性制度变迁转化是需要进一步的深入研究.     

Private Participation in Infrastructure and Financial Sector Development: Evidence from Developing Countries

This article studies whether private participation in infrastructure (PPI) investments promote financial sector development (FSD). With data from 62 developing countries over the period 1990–2013, we provide evidence of a positive and significant relationship between PPI investments and FSD, irrespective of different control variables, estimation methods and measures of FSD. With heterogeneity tests, we illustrate that the promotion effect is larger in emerging countries than in the other countries; however, the difference is marginal. We also identify that both civil and common legal origins have a comparative advantage than socialist legal origin for FSD.     

Institutional effects on information content of US and French management earnings forecasts: Evidence from market reactions and analyst revisions

The United States and France are both most developed economies in the world. Their socio-economic institutions, however, are very different. These differences are indications of their dichotomous legal regimes: common law in the US versus code law in France. The political influence of these legal regimes, in turn, leads to a dichotomized classification of accounting systems: the British-American Model and the French Continental Model. This study extends these institutional effects into the field of management earnings forecast. We find that earnings forecasts by French firms are less informative than those made by US firms matched-up by industry and firm size. We also compare US and French financial analysts' revisions of their forecasts following the management forecasts. We find that revisions by French analysts are more influenced by management forecasts. Our findings are consistent with prior studies that argue that information asymmetry in code-law countries is largely resolved through private information channels, rendering less information content in management announcements and less demand and incentives for original research by financial analysts.     

TOWARD A GLOBAL MODEL OF VENTURE CAPITAL?

While the U.S. still accounts for about two‐thirds of the world's total private equity fund‐raising and investment, other countries have been adopting American practices and are experiencing significant growth in their private equity markets. In fact, a case can be made that a global market for venture capital and private equity is emerging, at least in Western Europe and North America, where venture markets are seeing significant convergence in funding levels, investment patterns, and realized returns. To date, however, the European Union has had little success in establishing community‐wide commercial laws, taxation regimes, or corporate governance policies, so each country's private equity funds are organized in segmented national markets, and investment also tends to be largely localized. The Asian markets are even more fragmented: venture capital shows no sign of taking root in Japan, and China lacks the basic legal infrastructure needed to support a vibrant venture capital market. Venture capitalists create value through their role as active investors, and government and business leaders around the world have come to realize that venture capital and private equity investing can be a significant force in promoting economic development and technological progress. In general, countries with English common law codes offer greater protection to inves‐tors; the ratio of venture capital spending to GDP for common law countries is nearly double that in civil law countries. Government efforts to promote venture capital would probably be better focused on eliminating regulatory road‐blocks, lowering taxes, and provid‐ing a favorable investor climate. In the meantime, it appears that pri‐vate equity fund‐raising and invest‐ment have hit their cyclical lows and are poised to surpass $250 billion globally within three or four years and to reach one‐half trillion dollars by the end of the decade. The author also predicts that India, whose history as a former British colony has given it a common law framework as well as system of elite universities and technical institutes known for the quality of its gradu‐ates, should become one of the five leading venture capital markets by the end of this decade.     

Corporate social responsibility and firm financial risk reduction: On the moderating role of the legal environment

Approaching the institutional environment through its regulative component, we distinguish between shareholder‐oriented and stakeholder‐oriented countries. Identifying first this classification with the distinction between common law versus civil law countries and using a large sample of 5,716 firm‐year observations that represents 1,169 individual firms in 25 countries between 2001 and 2011, we show that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) significantly reduces firms’ idiosyncratic risk in civil law countries but not in common law countries. Using then a more direct classification based on shareholder and employee protection scores, our findings suggest that CSR negatively affects firms’ idiosyncratic and systematic risks only in less shareholder‐oriented and more stakeholder‐oriented countries, respectively. These findings are similar in the different components of CSR with two notable exceptions: a high score in corporate governance reduces firm risk only in common law countries, and community involvement increases idiosyncratic risk in more shareholder‐oriented and less stakeholder‐oriented countries, respectively. Taken together, our results strongly support the view that the relationship between CSR and financial risk is moderated by the institutional context of the firm.     

Microfinance institutions,financial intermediation and the role of deposits

Microfinance institutions (MFIs), widely regarded as bankers to the poor, have extended their financial functions beyond lending to managing deposits. We empirically examine the influence of MFI deposit-taking on MFI financial performance. Using data of 1,301 MFIs worldwide, we find that an MFI's deposit level is an important determinant of its financial viability. However, the relationship is influenced by MFIs’ institutional type (for-profit or nonprofit) and the legal environment (common law or civil law). The results suggest that the positive financial impact of deposits has not been fully realised, reflecting the need to further improve cost management and revenue generation.