{"title":"Recourse restrictions and judicial foreclosures: Effects of mortgage law on loan price and collateralization","authors":"Ana Isabel Sá","doi":"10.1016/j.irle.2023.106142","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.irle.2023.106142","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span>Borrower-friendly laws, such as recourse restrictions and judicial foreclosures, impose higher costs and risks to lenders. Yet, there is little evidence on how lenders transfer them to borrowers at the mortgage </span>origination<span>. By exploiting the mortgage law heterogeneity across U.S. states, I show that recourse restrictions trigger a collateral channel, through which lenders require a 1.6 to 1.9 percentage points lower loan-to-value ratio to compensate for worse recovery opportunities and respective higher expected loss. This effect holds both before and after the Great Recession<span>, and is robust to a regression discontinuity design approach. I also find that lenders do not penalize strategic defaults when recourse is not allowed. Regarding the impact of judicial requirements, the findings are mixed.</span></span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":47202,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Law and Economics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 106142"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43314608","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"When more isn’t always better: The ambiguity of fully transparent judicial action and unrestricted publication rules","authors":"Florian Baumann , Frank Fagan","doi":"10.1016/j.irle.2023.106154","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.irle.2023.106154","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Unrestricted publication of judicial opinions and full transparency of judicial action are often considered a means to increase information relevant for future litigants and public discourse. In this paper, we analyze a model that captures the potential for unintended consequences of such policies. Under certain conditions, unrestricted publication of judicial opinions, full transparency of judicial behavior at trial and oral argument enabled by telecasting, and other forms of surveillance of judicial behavior may induce judges to obscure their opinions and actions leading to less information for the public over time. Unrestricted publication and full transparency of judicial action should be carefully considered as a policy preference.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47202,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Law and Economics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 106154"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48452184","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Matthew V. Bondy , Samuel V. Cai , John J. Donohue
{"title":"Estimating the effect of U.S. concealed carry laws on homicide: A replication and sensitivity analysis","authors":"Matthew V. Bondy , Samuel V. Cai , John J. Donohue","doi":"10.1016/j.irle.2023.106141","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.irle.2023.106141","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In this article, we perform sensible robustness checks and estimation techniques that are broadly applicable to researchers studying the effects of concealed carry laws and apply them to recent work by Moody and Lott (2022). While Moody and Lott claim to have found that shall-issue and permitless-carry laws reduce homicide using data ending in 2014, our event-study analysis demonstrates that their model violates the conditional parallel-trends assumption. Additionally, applying methodology from Broderick et al. (2021), we show Moody and Lott’s results are highly sensitive to the removal of a small number of observations. We examine and reject Moody and Lott’s hypothesis that early- and late-adopting “shall-issue” states experienced different outcomes through sensitivity testing of their early–late threshold and applying the Goodman-Bacon (2021) decomposition. Following De Chaisemartin and d’Haultfoeuille (2020), we show Moody and Lott’s results are biased by heterogeneous treatment effects. Overall, our results highlight the importance of conducting principled validity and sensitivity checks before introducing outlier estimates into the empirical literature.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47202,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Law and Economics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 106141"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49748243","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ethnolinguistic diversity, quality of local public institutions, and firm-level innovation","authors":"Chiara Natalie Focacci , Mitja Kovac , Rok Spruk","doi":"10.1016/j.irle.2023.106155","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.irle.2023.106155","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Institutional quality is crucial for innovation and economic growth. In this article, we exploit historical linguistic differences across Slovenian municipalities between the Italian, German, and Slovenian-speaking population prior to World War 1, as a plausible exogenous source of variation in firm-level innovation to estimate the effect of institutional quality on innovation. Employing a set of limited dependent variable and instrumental variable models, we show that greater historical exposure to multilingualism is associated with markedly better quality of government and provision of public goods, more impartial local government administration, and lower prevalence of corruption, which in turn predicts systematically more vibrant economic activity, greater economic complexity, and higher rates of firm-level innovation at the local level. The estimated effects are robust to a variety of specification checks and do not appear to be sensitive to the choice of ethnic and linguistic diversity measures.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47202,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Law and Economics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 106155"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47103587","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Which companies pay more (or less) in legal fees? An empirical study of India","authors":"Srinivasan Sankaraguruswamy , Umakanth Varottil","doi":"10.1016/j.irle.2023.106138","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.irle.2023.106138","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Although the demand for corporate legal services has grown significantly, so has the pressure on companies to reduce legal costs, thereby necessitating a “data-and-metrics” driven approach to legal fees. Accordingly, we exploit the availability of a unique dataset comprising legal fees that Indian corporations have spent over a 30-year period from 1990 to 2020. We undertake the first cross-sectional analysis of legal fees across various exploratory variables over a long period of time. The results show an increasing trend in the quantum of legal fees incurred by Indian companies during the period. They overwhelmingly suggest that large companies (measured along the lines of total assets, industry segmentation, export and import orientation) spend a higher quantum in legal fees than do small companies. Legal costs are higher for companies that undertake capital raising or mergers and acquisitions transactions in a given financial year than those that do not experience such events. Finally, legal fees tend to be higher in certain industry sectors such as technology and energy where significant contracting, regulatory or other form of legal work is pervasive. It is our expectation that the results and accompanying data analysis will aid purchasers of legal services (being corporations and their in-house legal departments) as well as providers (being law firms and legal professionals) in planning and budgeting for legal fees, and also in devising and implementing appropriate fee arrangements.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47202,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Law and Economics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 106138"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49748534","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mutual optimism and risk preferences in litigation","authors":"Keith N. Hylton","doi":"10.1016/j.irle.2023.106157","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.irle.2023.106157","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Why do some legal disputes fail to settle? From a bird’s eye view, the literature offers two categories of reasons. One consists of arguments based on informational disparities. The other consists of psychological arguments. This paper explores the psychological theory. It presents a model of litigation driven by risk preferences and examines the model’s implications for trials and settlements. The model suggests a foundation in Prospect Theory for the Mutual Optimism model of litigation. The model’s implications for plaintiff win rates, settlement patterns, and informational asymmetry with respect to the degree of risk aversion are examined.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47202,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Law and Economics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 106157"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49758102","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Law and inequality: A comparative approach to the distributive implications of legal systems","authors":"Illan Barriola , Bruno Deffains , Olivier Musy","doi":"10.1016/j.irle.2023.106139","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.irle.2023.106139","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span>The literature on legal traditions focuses on the comparative macroeconomic effects of legal systems, concentrating on efficiency alone and leaving distributive issues to taxation. However, a country’s legal structure also conditions the primary distribution of income and may have a comparative advantage over taxation as a distributive instrument. We use cross-section and panel estimates to show that the level of income </span>inequality<span> in a country is correlated with its legal system. By several measures of inequality, common law countries are on average more unequal than civil law countries. We explain these results by the nature of the systems. The looser regulation in common law countries limits their capacity to achieve social objectives such as combating income inequality.</span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":47202,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Law and Economics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 106139"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49758635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The effects of reputational sanctions on culpable firms: Evidence from China’s stock markets","authors":"Robin Hui Huang , Linhan Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.irle.2023.106152","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.irle.2023.106152","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We examine an important yet understudied form of reputational sanction in China, namely public criticisms imposed on culpable firms by the Chinese stock exchanges from 2013 to 2018. We find significantly negative cumulative abnormal returns around the announcement date, and they were affected by several factors, including financing propensity, governance mechanism, and equity nature. However, the market reaction is significantly negative only for firms relying on external financing and non-state enterprises, and importantly, becomes insignificant in cases where the firm had self-exposed misconduct before the official announcement of public criticism. Further, we examine other effects of public criticism, finding that public criticism does not improve firms’ long-term values, nor produce strong deterrence to change their behaviour. Overall, the evidence of the effects of public criticism on culpable firms is mixed, suggesting that reputational sanction is a weak, if not ineffective, instrument of market regulation in China.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47202,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Law and Economics","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 106152"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49747913","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Response to “Contracting for sex in the Pacific War” by J. Mark Ramseyer","authors":"Yoshiaki Yoshimi, Emi Koyama (Trans.), Norma Field (Trans.), Tomomi Yamaguchi (Trans.)","doi":"10.1016/j.irle.2023.106158","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.irle.2023.106158","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper critically examines J. Mark Ramseyer’s \"Contracting for sex in the Pacific War,\" published in the <em>International Review of Law and Economics</em>, Volume 65, March 2021, Article 105971.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47202,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Law and Economics","volume":"76 ","pages":"Article 106158"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47795928","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Fiscal pressure and judicial decisions: Evidence from financial penalties for official corruption in China","authors":"Hongli Chu , Shengmin Sun , Jian Wei","doi":"10.1016/j.irle.2023.106156","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.irle.2023.106156","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span>The connection between court resources and judicial behavior has long been acknowledged. This article examines the linkages between local governments' fiscal pressures and Chinese judges' decisions on financial sanctions. Based on data from criminal verdicts of official corruption<span> and county government expenditures, this study finds that Chinese judges are more likely to impose financial penalties, especially fines, when judicial expenditures in a region are low. The conclusion remains unchanged after accounting for the </span></span>endogeneity problem<span> using the age of the county party secretary and the per capita financial expenditure lagged for one period as instrumental variables. Finally, the imprisonment penalty without increasing revenue is used to test the placebo, and no effect of fiscal pressure on the imprisonment penalty is found.</span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":47202,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Law and Economics","volume":"77 ","pages":"Article 106156"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1,"publicationDate":"2023-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134950526","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}