Download Bushell`s case

10th Class
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Attendance Sheet
Audio Recorder on
Review
Legal Origin
Exam
– 24 hour take home exam
– Monday-Wednesday, April 16-18 2012
– Probably 3 documents and questions
• Much like documents and questions assigned and
discussed for each class
Review
• English courts do not have power to invalidate
legislation on constitutional grounds
• But several mechanisms by which can overturn
executive, administrative and even judicial
action
– Ordinary trespass suit against government official
• Wilkes v. Wood
– Habeas Corpus
• Bushell’s case
– Certiorari
• Review of JPs and administrative courts
Legal Origin
• Nearly all countries have legal systems based on (British) common law or
(French) civil law
– Some countries have legal systems based on German or Scandinavian
law
– Some countries have elements of both systems
• Israel, Mauritius, Sri Lanka, South Africa
• Differences
– Judicial decisionmaking more important in Common Law countries
• Codes more important in civil law countries
– Juries sometimes used in Common Law countries
– Career judiciaries in civil law countries
• Recent law graduates become judges in less important courts, and
then are promote over time
– Like civil service position
• “recognition” judiciaries in common law countries
– Judges appointed late in life after careers in private or public
sector
– Common law judges have greater protections for judicial independence
• In what way is Israel a common law country? In ways is it a civil law country?
• Is common law better? Is civil law better?
LLSV
• = LaPorta, Lopez-de-Silanes, Shleifer & Vishny
– Economists at Harvard, World Bank….
• Over the last decade, LLSV have written very
influential papers that show link from common
law legal origin to good policies and outcomes
– Investor protection
→
– Free labor markets
→
– Judicial independence →
large capital markets
low unemployment
property rights
• Theory
– Common law more supportive of free markets
– Common law more adaptable, less formalistic
Contributions My Paper
• Analysis of colonial origin
– Legal origin highly correlated with colonial origin
• But not identical
– Law was not only institution imposed by colonial power
• Education, infrastructure, etc.
– English, French and other colonial powers did not colonize
randomly
• Economic Growth, 1960-2007 as dependent variable
– In general, care about investor protection and property rights
because care about economic growth
Country
Growth Legal
1960- Origin
2007
Colonial Education Life
Origin
in 1960
Expect.
In 1960
GDP
p.c.
1960
Taiwan
5.9% German
Japan
96%
65
1720
Botswana
5.7% Mixed
British
42%
46
651
S. Korea
5.7% German
Japan
94%
54
2094
Singapore
4.3% Common British
100%
64
4000
Malaysia
4.4% Common British
96%
54
2171
Haiti
-0.3% French
French
46%
42
1822
Nicaragua
-0.5% French
Spanish
66%
47
2706
Niger
-0.8% French
French
5%
35
1225
C.A.Rep.
-1.2% French
French
32%
39
1543
Zaire
-3.5% French
Belgian
60%
42
1953
(1)
(2)
(3)
French Law, French Colony
0.00
0.00
0.00
French Law, Not French Colony
0.78
-020
1.13
Common Law, British Colony
1.01
0.29
1.18
Mixed Law, British Colony
2.11
0.89
2.06
Education in 1960
0.58
Life Expectancy in 1960
0.09
Juries 1960
0.73
Case Law 1973
-0.26
Judicial Independence 1960
-0.37
Statistical Significance: Legal and Colonial Origin
Statistical Significance: Other variables
Yes
p=0.00
No
p=0.11
Yes
p=0.01
Yes
p=0.00
No
p=0.26
Robustness Checks
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LLSV coding of legal origin
Countries still colonies in 1960
Countries for which legal origin exogenous
Just legal origin (without colonial origin)
Just colonial origin (without legal origin)
Horse race: colonial & legal origin together
Geographic variables
– Not robust
– Matched pairs
– Plan more work
• Log 2003 GDP per capita as dependent variable
Other Dependent Variables
• Regressions with other dependent variables
– Market cap/GDP; Credit/GDP; Corruption; Unemployment
– Neither legal origin nor colonial origin consistently better
• Puzzle: Why is common law associated with so many
good things (e.g. capital markets, property rights…)
but not economic growth?
• 3 plausible solutions
– Capital markets etc. don’t matter for growth
• Acemoglu & Robinson, “Unbundling Institutions” (2005)
– Common law has offsetting disadvantages
• Spamann, “Legal Origins of Crime…”
– Effect of things measured by LLSV are positive
• But too small to be captured by regressions. Perhaps 0.5%
Conclusion
• Hard to disentangle legal and colonial origin
– But results suggest that colonial origin was more important,
at least for economic growth
• Common Law countries grew, on average, 0.5% faster
• But common law advantage better explained by
colonial policy and selection than by law
– Non-French colonies with French law grew faster than
French colonies
– British colonies with mixed legal systems grew faster than
those with common law
– Colonial proxies (education, life expectancy) have more
explanatory power than legal proxies (juries, case law,
judicial independence)