Economic literature studies bankruptcy as a homogenous phenomenon. Insolvency concerns all kind of firms and judgements are made without any reference to the firm’s size. We consider this assumption does not hold and we try to consider the alternative one, i.e. judges take into account the...

This paper aims at giving an explanation of the changes in the number of bankruptcies during the second part of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. We wonder in particular whether changes in bankruptcy law, which are substantial during the period, suffice to explain the rise in the...

In this paper, we try to measure the impact of the changes in French bankruptcy law in the 19th century focusing on the behaviour of economic agents as users of bankruptcy law for the sake of finding the best solution to their economic problems. Debtors used bankruptcy law in order to minimize...