Justice delayed is growth denied: Evidence from a comparative perspective

Alessandro Melcarne (Université Paris Nanterre)
Giovanni Ramello (Università di Torino)
Rok Spruk (University of Ljubljana)

Abstract

Institutions have been widely studied as drivers of countries’ economic development. In the present work we investigate how the performance of ju- dicial systems affects property rights’ protection and contract enforcement. We focus on judicial timeliness as an objective proxy of courts’ performance on a panel of 175 countries. The hypothesis being tested suggests that slower courts hinder economic development. We employ several economet- ric specifications and techniques in order to estimate a plausibly unbiased effect of judicial delay on economic growth.

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