TY  - JOUR
AU  - Porta,Rafael La
AU  - Lopez-deSilanes,Florencio
AU  - Shleifer,Andrei
AU  - Vishny,Robert W.
TI  - Investor Protection: Origins, Consequences, and Reform
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 7428
PY  - 1999
Y2  - December 1999
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7428
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7428.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
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

Robert W. Vishny
Booth School of Business
The University of Chicago
5807 South Woodlawn Avenue
Chicago, IL  60637
Tel: 773/702-2522
Fax: 773/834-1920
E-Mail: Rvishny@gmail.com
AB  - Recent research has documented large differences between countries in ownership concentration in publicly traded firms, in the breadth and depth of capital markets, in dividend policies, and in the access of firms to external finance.  We suggest that there is a common element to the explanations of these differences, namely how well investors, both shareholders and creditors, are protected by law from expropriation by the managers and controlling shareholders of firms.  We describe the differences in laws and the effectiveness of their enforcement across countries, discuss the possible origins of these differences, summarize their consequences, and assess potential strategies of corporate governance reform.  We argue that the legal approach is a more fruitful way to understand corporate governance and its reform than the conventional distinction between bank-centered and market-centered financial systems.
ER  -