توسعه مالی در نظام های حقوقی خصمانه و تفتیش عقاید

This paper aims to understand why common law countries have more developed financial markets than civil law countries. One difference between these two legal origins is the procedure of evidence collection for a trial: It is adversarial in common law and inquisitorial in civil law. The adversarial system delegates the collection of evidence to a larger extent to lawyers than the inquisitorial system does. The paper presents a model of law and finance in which investors use courts to enforce their financial contracts with entrepreneurs. Investors are willing to lend more if courts collect evidence more efficiently. Financial markets are more developed in the adversarial than in the inquisitorial system if investors are richer than entrepreneurs or if lawyers are more productive than judges. Manipulation of evidence by lawyers has an ambiguous impact on finance.

A puzzling stylized fact about legal origins is the apparent superior economic performance of common law countries compared to civil law countries.1La Porta et al. (1997) show that common law countries have larger financial markets and Mahoney (2001) that economic growth is also higher in those countries. Hence the question: Does the legal origin of a country matter for its economic performance? One key distinction between these two legal origins is the procedure to collect evidence for a trial: It is adversarial in common law countries and inquisitorial in civil law countries. This paper investigates whether this difference can explain the better economic outcomes of common law countries.

Why do common law countries have larger financial markets than civil law countries? The paper addresses this puzzle by focusing on the procedure of evidence collection for a trial: It is adversarial in common law countries and inquisitorial in civil law countries. ADV delegates the task of evidence collection to a larger extent to lawyers than INQ does. The paper provides two possible conditions under which ADV leads to a higher level of financial development than INQ: (i) lawyers are more productive than judges; (ii) investors are relatively richer than entrepreneurs. Manipulation of evidence by lawyers has an ambiguous impact on finance. The paper suggests a new channel through which legal origins can affect finance. Further research should aim to test whether the predictions of the model are consistent with the data and, if they are, to assess the quantitative importance of this channel.