Law and Finance Matter: Lessons from Externally Imposed Courts
利用美国国会将州法院强加于部分印第安保留地这一外生制度差异，研究发现州法院更可预测的合同执行促进了小企业信贷市场发展，进而显著提高人均收入，尤其对外部融资依赖强的行业影响更大。
This paper provides novel evidence on the real and financial market effects of legal institutions. Our analysis exploits persistent and externally imposed differences in court enforcement that arose when the U.S. Congress assigned state courts to adjudicate contracts on a subset of Native American reservations. Using area-specific data on small business lending, we find that reservations assigned to state courts, which enforce contracts more predictably than tribal courts, have stronger credit markets. Moreover, the law-driven component of credit market development is associated with significantly higher per capita income, with stronger effects in sectors that depend more on external financing.Received April 24, 2015; accepted March 7, 2016 by Editor Robin Greenwood.