Legal Institutions and Economic Development

73 Pages Posted: 6 Dec 2010

See all articles by Thorsten Beck

Thorsten Beck

City University London - The Business School; Tilburg University - European Banking Center, CentER

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Date Written: December 2010

Abstract

Legal institutions are critical for the development of market-based economies. This paper defines legal institutions and discusses different indicators to measure their quality and efficiency. It surveys a large historical and empirical literature showing the importance of legal institutions in explaining cross-country variation in economic development. Finally, it presents and discusses three different views of why we can observe the large cross-country variation in legal institutions, the social conflict, the legal origin and the culture and religion hypotheses.

Keywords: Economic development, Legal institutions, Legal system indicators, Property rights

JEL Classification: K1, K4, O16, O43, P14

Suggested Citation

Beck, Thorsten, Legal Institutions and Economic Development (December 2010). CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP8139, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1718934

Thorsten Beck (Contact Author)

City University London - The Business School ( email )

106 Bunhill Row
London, EC1Y 8TZ
United Kingdom

Tilburg University - European Banking Center, CentER ( email )

PO Box 90153
Tilburg, 5000 LE
Netherlands

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