Finance and Politics: A Review Essay Based on Kenneth Dam's Analysis of Legal Traditions in The Law–Growth Nexus

2009 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 781-800 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark J Roe ◽  
Jordan I Siegel
Keyword(s):  
Financial Markets ◽  
Financial Development ◽  
Development Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Alternative Hypothesis ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
The Core ◽  
Legal Traditions ◽  
Legal Origins ◽  
Government Power

Strong financial markets are widely thought to propel economic development, with many in finance seeing legal tradition as fundamental to protecting investors sufficiently for finance to flourish. Kenneth Dam finds that the legal tradition view inaccurately portrays how legal systems work, how laws developed historically, and how government power is allocated in the various legal traditions. Yet, after probing the legal origins' literature for inaccuracies, Dam does not deeply develop an alternative hypothesis to explain the world's differences in financial development. Nor does he challenge the origins core data, which could be origins' trump card. Hence, his analysis will not convince many economists, despite that his legal learning suggests conceptual and factual difficulties for the legal origins explanations. Yet, a dense political economy explanation is already out there and the origins-based data has unexplored weaknesses consistent with Dam's contentions. Knowing if the origins view is truly fundamental, flawed, or secondary is vital for financial development policy making because policymakers who believe it will pick policies that imitate what they think to be the core institutions of the preferred legal tradition. But if they have mistaken views, as Dam indicates they might, as to what the legal traditions' institutions really are and which types of laws are effective, or what is really most important to financial development, they will make policy mistakes—potentially serious ones.

scholarly journals Lectio Praecursoria: Social Orders, Tensions and Saviourism: An ethnography of Finnish Roma policy implementation

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 51-56
Author(s):  
Marko Stenroos
Keyword(s):  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Development Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
National Policy ◽  
The Core ◽  
Social Orders

“Social orders, tensions and saviourism” represents an ethnography on the implementation of Finnish national policy on Roma. It draws upon two and half years of fieldwork working in a Roma project. The name of the study, “Social orders, tensions and saviourism,” reflects the core findings of the study. It argues that the neoliberal policy-making applied to Romani people have an ideological premise that is incongruous with their social realities causing tensions among participants and formulating a form of saviourism. Keywords: Finnish Roma, participation, development, policy, neoliberalism, power

Legal Origin, Institutional Quality, and Islamic Finance Development: Does Shari’a Matter?

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 345-369
Author(s):  
Rihab Grassa
Keyword(s):  
Financial Development ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Islamic Finance ◽  
Islamic Banking ◽  
Financial Industry ◽  
Legal Origin ◽  
Muslim Population ◽  
Legal Origins ◽  
Shari'a Law

AbstractPrevious studies on financial development have shown that differences in the legal origin explain differences in financial development. Using historical comparisons and cross-country regressions for 40 countries observed for the period from 2005 to 2018, our research assesses how different legal origins have affected the development of Islamic finance worldwide. More particularly, our research assesses empirically why and how the adoption of Shari’a, wholly or partially (combined with common or civil law), could explain the level of development of Islamic finance in different jurisdictions. Our primary results show that countries adopting a Shari’a legal system have a very well-developed Islamic financial system. Moreover, countries adopting a mixed legal system based on common law and Shari’a law have sufficient flexibility within their legal systems to make changes to their laws in response to the changing socioeconomic conditions, and this has helped the development of the Islamic financial industry. However, countries adopting a mixed legal system based on both civil law and Shari’a law appear less flexible in making changes to their old laws and this thwarted the development of the Islamic financial industry in these countries. Furthermore, we have found that the concentration of a Muslim population (the percentage of Muslim population) along with the level of income have both had a positive effect on the development of Islamic banking assets and on the development of Islamic banking as a whole.

The Feudal Origins of the Western Legal Tradition

ORDO ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (70) ◽  
pp. 3-20
Author(s):  
Cameron Harwick ◽  
Hilton Root
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
Legal Development ◽  
Limited Government ◽  
Legal Traditions

AbstractThis paper draws a distinction between ‘communitarian’ and ‘rationalist’ legal orders on the basis of the implied political strategy. We argue that the West’s solution to the paradox of governance – that a government strong enough to protect rights cannot itself be restrained from violating those rights – originates in certain aspects of the feudal contract, a confluence of aspects of communitarian Germanic law, which enshrined a contractual notion of political authority, and rationalistic Roman law, which supported large-scale political organization. We trace the tradition of strong but limited government to the conflict between factions with an interest in these legal traditions – nobles and the crown, respectively – and draw limited conclusions for legal development in non-Western contexts.

Legal Practice in the Southern Leon and Castile of the 12th Century: a Borderline State

Istoriya ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9 (107)) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Galina Popova
Keyword(s):  
Legal Framework ◽  
Practical Implementation ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Legal Proceedings ◽  
Legal Traditions ◽  
12Th Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Normative Basis ◽  
Judicial Proceedings

The article is devoted to the legal history of the lands of the Kingdom of Toledo in the first two hundred years after the Christian reconquest. The assimilation of the conquered lands by the new political power, preserving the border position, leads to the emergence of a special legal tradition, typical for other similar territories, which received the general name “extremadura” — “borderland”. The Fueros, created in the Kingdom of Toledo, from the very beginning, firmly linked the territorial and personal nature of the legal norms included in their texts. The formation of local legal traditions took place with the active participation of the local elite, which was reflected in the editing of Fuero texts. The inhabitants of Toledo were supposed to use the Visigothic "Liber iudiciorum" as a normative basis for legal proceedings, but at the same time maintained the legitimate possibility of resorting to norms of a different origin, the so-called “Fuero of Castilians”. The lack of a strict systematization in the legal framework of the proceedings was reflected in the organization of judicial officials in Toledo. The good preservation of the local act material allows us to consider in more detail the practical implementation of the legal norm in the process of judicial proceedings, recorded in Arabic in the protocol of the end of the 8th century.

scholarly journals Deepening and Connecting Democratic Processes. The Opportunities and Pitfalls of Mini-Publics in Renewing Democracy

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (11) ◽  
pp. 236
Author(s):  
Ank Michels ◽  
Harmen Binnema
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Random Sampling ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Specific Design ◽  
Fundamental Nature ◽  
The Core ◽  
Equal Chance ◽  
Political Impact ◽  
Selection Of

In recent decades, so-called “mini-publics” have been organized in many countries to renew policy making and democracy. One characteristic of mini-publics is that the selection of the participants is based on random sampling or sortition. This gives each member of the community an equal chance of being selected. Another feature is that deliberation forms the core of the process of how proposals are developed. In this paper, we investigate the possibilities and challenges of sortition and deliberation in the context of the call for a deepening of democracy and more citizen engagement in policy making. Based on extensive research on citizens’ forums (G1000) in The Netherlands, we show the potential of mini-publics, but a number of shortcomings as well. Some of these are related to the specific design of the G1000, while others are of a more fundamental nature and are due to the contradictory democratic values that deliberative mini-publics try to combine. One of these concerns the tension between the quality of deliberation and political impact. We conclude that combining institutional approaches could be a way out to deal with these tensions and a step forward to both deepen and connect democratic processes.

Reconsidering the state

2020 ◽  
pp. 55-74
Author(s):  
Kate Crowley ◽  
Jenny Stewart ◽  
Adrian Kay ◽  
Brian W. Head
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
The State ◽  
Binary Choice ◽  
Policy Effectiveness ◽  
Comparative Public Policy ◽  
Policy Studies ◽  
The Core ◽  
State And Society ◽  
Public Policy Analysis

State-centred and society-centred explanations in comparative public policy analysis disagree markedly on the extent to which the state has autonomy or is essentially a clearing-house for outside forces. In this chapter, we reconsider the position of the state in policy studies by investigating the interactions and inter-dependency between the state and society rather than making a binary choice between state-centred and society-centred perspectives on governance. The core argument is that policy studies can improve its ability to apprehend the position of the state in dilemmas of contemporary policy-making by acknowledging that the state is, at once, both critical to collective action and reliant on crucial elements of societal support for its policy effectiveness. In such terms, governance is a useful label for the variety of ways in which society is not simply acted upon by the state, but actively shapes the actions of and outcomes of state activity.

Towards a Transsystemic Study of the Ghana Legal System

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-50
Author(s):  
Poku Adusei
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Legal Tradition ◽  
Legal Traditions ◽  
The Law ◽  
Cultural Dialogue

This article provides comprehensive insights into the study of the Ghana legal system as an academic discipline in the law faculties in Ghana. It urges the view that the study of the Ghana legal system, as an academic discipline, should be transsystemic. Transsystemic pedagogy consists in the introduction of ideas, structures and principles which may be drawn from different legal traditions such as civil law, common law, religion-based law, African law and socialist law traditions to influence the study of law. Transsystemia involves teaching law ‘across,’ ‘through,’ and ‘beyond’ disciplinary fixations associated with a particular legal system. It is a mode of scholarship that defies biased allegiance to one legal tradition in order to foster cross-cultural dialogue among legal traditions. It involves a study of law that re-directs focus from one concerned with ‘pure’ legal system to a discourse that is grounded on multiple legal traditions.

The persistent effect of banking crises on investment and the role of financial markets

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felix Rioja ◽  
Fernando Rios-Avila ◽  
Neven Valev
Keyword(s):  
Financial Markets ◽  
Financial Development ◽  
Banking Crisis ◽  
Banking Crises ◽  
Output Growth ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Negative Effect

Purpose – While the literature studying the effect of banking crises on real output growth rates has found short-lived effects, recent work has focused on the level effects showing that banking crises can reduce output below its trend for several years. This paper aims to investigate the effect of banking crises on investment finding a prolonged negative effect. Design/methodology/approach – The authors test to see whether investment declines after a banking crisis and, if it does, for how long and by how much. The paper uses data for 148 countries from 1963 to 2007. Econometrically, the authors test how banking crises episodes affect investment in future years after controlling for other potential determinants. Findings – The authors find that the investment to GDP ratio is on average about 1.7 percent lower for about eight years following a banking crisis. These results are robust after controlling for credit availability, institutional characteristics, and a host of other factors. Furthermore, the authors find that the size and duration of this adverse effect on investment varies according to the level of financial development of a country. The largest and longer-lasting decrease in investment is found in countries in a middle region of financial development, where finance plays its most important role according to theory. Originality/value – The authors contribute by finding that banking crisis can have long-term effects on investment of up to nine years. Further, the authors contribute by finding that the level of development of the country's financial markets affects the duration of this decrease in investment.

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