In early 2005 a new bankruptcy law was approved by the Brazilian Congress, taking effect a few months later. The new legislation improved creditor protection and the bankruptcy system's efficiency. This paper tries to shed some light on the empirical consequences of a bankruptcy reform on a...

This paper studies bankruptcy law in Latin America, focusing on the Brazilian reform. We start with a review of the international literature on this subject. Next we examine the economic incentives associated with several aspects of bankruptcy laws and insolvency procedures in general, as well...

This study investigates the relationship between debtor punishment and the development of the credit market. We empirically analyze how the level of debtor punishment relates to the credit market expansion. We find evidence that an increase in debtor punishment tends to produce a positive effect...

This study investigates the relationship between debtors? punishment and the credit market development. As the main goal we analyze empirically which is the optimal level of the debtors? punishment, providing the highest credit market development. Aligned with earlier theoretical findings from...

This paper examines the relationship between corporate governance level and the bankruptcy law to such debt variables as firms? cost of debt and amount of debt under uncertainty (in the Knight´s sense). First we find that the better the corporate governance and the harsher bankruptcy law, the...

This paper studies the effect of changes in creditors? priority order defined by the bankruptcy law on firms? capital structure. Taking advantage of the Brazilian bankruptcy law Reform and using firms? balance sheet data, we obtain results in line with theories that predict the effects on the...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of changes in creditors' priority defined by the bankruptcy law on firms' capital structure. Design/methodology/approach – Taking advantage of the Brazilian bankruptcy law reform as an experiment and using publicly traded firms'...