Legal Traditions and Initial Endowments in Shaping the Path of Financial Development
研究发现，英国普通法对前殖民地金融发展的促进作用取决于初始禀赋水平：低人口密度地区效果显著，高禀赋地区则不明显；而法国民法的影响与禀赋无关。
This paper finds remarkable heterogeneity in the relationship between legal traditions and finance in former colonies. The effect of the British common law on financial development is conditioned by the level of initial endowments. In former colonies with low precolonial population density, the common law has promoted high financial development, but where endowments were abundant, this legal tradition has not worked well. In contrast, the effect of the French civil law on finance is invariant to endowments. British common law countries do not exhibit greater financial development levels than French civil law countries when endowments are sufficiently high.