TY  - JOUR
AU  - Balas,Aron
AU  - Porta,Rafael La
AU  - Lopez-de-Silanes,Florencio
AU  - Shleifer,Andrei
TI  - The Divergence of Legal Procedures
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 13809
PY  - 2008
Y2  - February 2008
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13809
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13809.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Aron Balas
Oliver Wyman - Financial Services
1 Neal Street
London, UK WC2H 9QL
E-Mail: balasa@nber.org

Rafael La Porta
Dartmouth College
Tuck School
210 Tuck Hall
Hanover, NH  03755
Tel: 603/646-3739
E-Mail: rafael.laporta@dartmouth.edu

Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes
EDHEC Business School
393, Promenade des Anglais BP 3116
06202 Nice Cedex 3
France
Tel: +33 (0) 4 93 18 78 07
Fax: +33 (0) 4 93 18 78 41
E-Mail: Florencio.lopezdesilanes@edhec.edu

Andrei Shleifer
Department of Economics
Harvard University
Littauer Center M-9
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-5046
Fax: 617/496-1708
E-Mail: ashleifer@harvard.edu
AB  - Djankov et al. (2003a) propose and measure for 109 countries in the year 2000 an index of formalism of legal procedure for two simple disputes: eviction of a non-paying tenant and collection of a bounced check.  For a sub-sample of 40 countries, we compute this index every year starting in 1950, which allows us to study the evolution of legal rules.  We find that between 1950 and 2000, the formalism of legal procedure did not converge, and possibly diverged, between common law and French civil law countries.  At least in this specific area of law, the results are inconsistent with the hypothesis that national legal systems are converging, and support the view that legal origins exert long lasting influence on legal rules.
ER  -