>"The Guarantees of Freedom"
>
> BY: RAFAEL LA PORTA
> Harvard University
> Department of Economics
> National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
> FLORENCIO LOPEZ-DE-SILANES
> Yale University
> International Institute of Corporate Governance
> National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
> CRISTIAN POP-ELECHES
> Harvard University
> Department of Economics
> ANDREI SHLEIFER
> Harvard University
> Department of Economics
> National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
>
>Document: Available from the SSRN Electronic Paper Collection:
> http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=297145
>
>Paper ID: Yale ICF Working Paper No. 02-05
> Date: January 2002
>
> Contact: ANDREI SHLEIFER
> Email: Mailto:ashleifer at harvard.edu
> Postal: Harvard University
> Department of Economics
> Room M-9
> Littauer Center
> Cambridge, MA 02138 UNITED STATES
> Phone: 617-495-5046
> Fax: 617-496-1708
> Co-Auth: RAFAEL LA PORTA
> Email: Mailto:rafael_laporta at harvard.edu
> Postal: Harvard University
> Department of Economics
> Room M7
> Littauer Center
> Cambridge, MA 02138 UNITED STATES
> Co-Auth: FLORENCIO LOPEZ-DE-SILANES
> Email: Mailto:florencio.lopezdesilanes at yale.edu
> Postal: Yale University
> International Institute of Corporate Governance
> Yale School of Management
> 135 Prospect Street
> New Haven, CT 06520 UNITED STATES
> Co-Auth: CRISTIAN POP-ELECHES
> Email: Mailto:eleches at fas.harvard.edu
> Postal: Harvard University
> Department of Economics
> Littauer Center
> Cambridge, MA 02138 UNITED STATES
>
>ABSTRACT:
> Hayek (1960) distinguishes the institutions of English freedom,
> which guarantee the independence of judges from political
> interference in the administration of justice, from those of
> American freedom, which allow judges to restrain law-making
> powers of the sovereign through constitutional review. We create
> a data base of constitutional rules in 71 countries that reflect
> these institutions of English and American freedom, and ask
> whether these rules predict economic and political freedom in a
> cross-section of countries. We find that the English
> institutions of judicial independence are strong predictors of
> economic freedom and weaker predictors of political freedom. The
> American institutions of checks and balances are strong
> predictors of political but not of economic freedom. Judicial
> independence explains half of the positive effect of common law
> legal origin on measures of economic freedom.