Gender and Finance

bl ic Di sc lo su re A ut ho riz ed Pu bl ic Di sc lo su re A ut ho riz ed Pu bl ic Di sc lo su re A ut ho riz ed Pu bl ic Di sc lo su re A ut ho riz ed | POLICY RESEARCH WORKING PAPER 2904 A growing body of work suggests that cross-country Second, the "adaptability " channel holds that (1) legal differences in legal origin help explain differences in traditions differ in their ability to adjust to changing financial development. Beck, Demirgiuc-Kunt, and Levine commercial circumstances, and (2) legal systems that assess two theories of why legal origin influences adapt quickly to minimize the gap between the financial development. First, the "political " channel contracting needs of the economy and the legal system's stresses that (1) legal traditions differ in the priority they capabilities will foster financial development more give to the rights of individual investors compared with effectively than would more rigid legal traditions. The the state, and that (2) this has repercussions for the authors use historical comparisons and cross-country development of property rights and financial markets. regressions to assess the validity of these two channels