Which Countries Give Investors the Best Protection?

La Porta, Rafael ; Lopez de Silanes, Florencio ; Shleifer, Andrei ; Vishny, Robert

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: AFFILIATED ORGANIZATIONS;    AUTOMATIC LIQUIDATION;    BANKRUPTCY;    CIVIL LAW;    COMMON;   

RP-ID  :  16709

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Does the owner of a share of stock inMexico have the same rights as one in Germany or India? Is acreditor in Italy as well protected as one in Switzerland?Do laws protecting investors differ among countries insystematic ways? Are they sufficiently enforced everywhere?And if there are differences, do they matter for corporatefinance? This Note reports on a study by the authors thatexamines these issues in a sample of countries coveringAsia, Africa, Europe, and North and South America. Theanalysis suggests that countries whose legal rules originatein the common law tradition tend to protect investors betterthan those whose laws originate in the civil law tradition,especially French civil law.