This study re-examines the theory of legal origin on the basis of a new longitudinal dataset on creditor protection for four OECD countries over a long time span 1970-2005. It observes that civil law countries (France and Germany) provided a higher level of protection to creditors on the issue...

The legal origins hypothesis is one of the most important and influential ideas to emerge in the social sciences in the past decade. However, the empirical base of the legal origins claim has always been contestable, as it largely consists of cross-sectional datasets which provide evidence on...