We investigate the extent to which perceived quality of judicial institutions has an impact on individuals' propensity for criminal and dishonest behavior and on their views regarding the acceptability of dishonesty and law-breaking. We use micro data on residents of 25 European countries and...

In cooperation with Lex Mundi member law firms in 109 countries, we measure and describe the exact procedures used by litigants and courts to evict a tenant for non-payment of rent and to collect a bounced check. We use these data to construct an index of procedural formalism of dispute...

In a recent series of articles, Rafael La Porta, Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes, Andrei Shleifer, and Robert W. Vishny have argued that countries whose legal systems are based on civil law (especially of French origin) have systematically weaker environments for business than those whose legal...

We provide an autopsy of the patterns of corporate control and ownership concentration in a dataset covering more than 40,000 listed firms from 127 countries over 2004−2012. Employing a plethora of original and secondary sources, big data techniques, and applying the Shapley-Shubik algorithm...

This paper develops a simple framework for understanding the emergence of new organizational forms, such as socially responsible firms and social entrepreneurs, that embody the private sector's efforts to resolve problems that typically have been within the purview of government and traditional...

How persistent are the effects of legal institutions adopted or inherited in the distant past? A substantial literature argues that legal origins have persistent effects that explain clear differences in investor protections and financial development around the world today (La Porta et al, 1998,...

This paper analyzes how private decisions and public policies are shaped by personal and societal preferences ("values"), material or other explicit incentives ("laws") and social sanctions or rewards ("norms"). It first examines how honor, stigma and social norms arise from individuals'...

A long-standing debate pits those who think economic development leads to democratization against those who argue that both result from distant historical causes. Using the most comprehensive estimates of national income available, I show that development is associated with more democratic...

We distinguish between three sets of rights – property rights, political rights, and civil rights – and provide a taxonomy of political regimes. The distinctive nature of liberal democracy is that it protects civil rights (equality before the law for minorities) in addition to the other two....

While scholars have hypothesized about the sources of variation in property rights for over 2500years, it is only very recently that researchers have begun to test these theories empirically. Thispaper reviews both the theory and empirical evidence supporting and refuting the law andendowment...