Culture, openness, and finance

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Stulz, RM; Williamson, R
• 署名单位: University System of Ohio; Ohio State University; Georgetown University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-405X
• DOI: 10.1016/S0304-405X(03)00173-9
• 发表日期: 2003
• 页码: 313-349
• 关键词: investor protection; culture; religion; language

摘要

Differences in culture, proxied by differences in religion and language, cannot be ignored when examining why investor protection differs across countries. We show that a country's principal religion predicts the cross-sectional variation in creditor rights better than a country's natural openness to international trade, its language, its income per capita, or the origin of its legal system. Catholic countries protect the rights of creditors less well than Protestant countries. A country's natural openness to international trade mitigates the influence of religion on creditor rights. Culture proxies are also helpful in understanding how investor rights are enforced across countries. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.