Legal Determinants of External Finance
Working Paper 5879
DOI 10.3386/w5879
Issue Date
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.
Non-Technical Summaries
- ...the largest companies can get access to external finance no matter where they're based, while smaller companies' ability to raise...
Published Versions
Journal of Finance, Vol. 52, no. 3 (1997): 1131-1150. citation courtesy of