This paper is the first result of a project aiming at understanding the history of bankruptcy law from an empirical economic perspective. By contrast with some proponents of "law and economics" (e.g. La Porta & alii, 1998), we consider that the impact of bankruptcy law on national economic...

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...