Key Words Legal Origins Economic Outcomes LLSV

Legal Origins A broad conception Crucial factors for the style of a legal family

Legal Origins

Legal Origin Distribution

A Brief Introduction of Legal Origins Common lawCivil law TraditionLaw of EnglandRoman law Legal materialPrecedents by solving specific legal disputes Statutes and comprehensive codes Dispute resolutionAdversarialInquisitorial SpreadBritish colonies (USA,Canada,Austrlia… ) Most widely distributed (many European countries)

French Family French Revolution and Napoleon’s codes Ideologies: use state power to alter property rights Legal influence Involuntary transplantation

German Family Base on Roman law German Commercial vs. French system Legal influence:China

Socialist Family Originate in the Soviet Union Revertion to French or German law after the fall of Berlin Wall Disappeared

Scandinavian Family Less derivative from Rman law Distinct

Five points about this classification Exceptions of voluntary transplantation French civil law :the most distict civil law Mutual influence of common law and civil law Legislation in common law The reclassification of transition economies

Economic outcomes

Three categories(1)

Categories(2)

Categories(3)

A Brief introduction of LLSV Rafael La Porta Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes Andrei Shleifer Robert Vishny

About LLSV's Research rank the strength or weaknesses of laws by assigning a numerical value to each type of law in a particular field compare the efficacy of different legal systems how these legal systems correlate with particular goals such as economic growth or employment. a methodology of data analysis

LLSV's Research Data Analysis Comparison of Different Legal Origins Correlation Between Legal Origins and Economic Outcomes

Main Conclusions of LLSV

Other Conclusions The law systems in rich countries are better at protecting investers than those in poor countries.

Other Conclusions A poor protection for investers may lead to a more inferior external finance and a smaller capital market

The Theoretical Contribution of LLSV's Research The first attemption to apply data analysis to lagal research May be helpful to those fields LLSV never reached (eg. PE) A Brand New Methodology

The Practical Importance of LLSV's Research The World Bank Asses and promote a particular way of legal development Use LLSV's research

The Controversy Against LLSV's Research the controversy against the fourfold classification of legal origins the purpose of classification is to underline the differences classification may cause problems: mainly the possibility of drawing ‘bright line’ distinctions between different classes of ‘legal family’ why not code the differences directly BUT SO

The Controversy Against LLSV's Research LLSV's Idea: common law judges have discretion to shape rules to changing economic circumstances, while civilian judges are bound to apply based on a superficial and outdated image of the differences between the common law and the civil law misleading because

Other Critisisms of LLSV's Research Has Already Been Amended by LLSV's Later Papers

A Brief Introduction of the Research

Different Results Compared with LLSV

Main Conclusions common law countries were not outperformed by civil law countries in various shareholders protection measures labour law was in fact positive for economic development in most cases.

Main Conclusions legal origin effect needs to be considered alongside other more recent influences including the impact of transnational standard setting in company, insolvency and labour law. there is not any assumption here that common law institutions are better fitted to market-based economic systems than those of the civil law.

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