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Can Civil Law Countries Get Good Institutions? Lessons from the History of Creditor Rights and Bond Markets in Brazil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2008

ALDO MUSACCHIO
ALDO MUSACCHIO*
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor, Business, Government and the International Economy Unit, Harvard Business School, Morgan Hall 279, Soldiers Field, Boston, MA 02163. E-mail: amusacchio@hbs.edu.
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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? I look at the relationship between legal origin and the development of bond markets and find too much variation over time in bond market size, creditor protections, and court enforcement of bond contracts to assume that the adoption of a legal system constrains future financial development. I examine the evolution of bond markets in Brazil, a French civil law country, and provide preliminary results of similar variation for a small cross-section of countries.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 68 , Issue 1 , March 2008 , pp. 80 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2008

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