Title:  The Legal Origins of Financial Development: Evidence from the Shanghai Concessions

Speaker：Yuchen Xu, Peking University, HSBC Business School (PHBS)

Time: 13:30 – 15:00， 17 September, 2021 (Beijing Time, GMT+8)  

Venue: Room 106 Zhonghui Building, Jinan University

Abstract

The key challenge to assessing the legal origins view of financial development is identifying exogenous changes in legal systems. We assemble new data on the British and French concessions in Shanghai between 1845 and 1936. Two regime changes altered the degree to which the British common and French civil law held jurisdiction over their respective concessions. By examining the changing application of different legal traditions to adjacent neighborhoods within the same city, we discover evidence consistent with the legal origins view: the financial development advantage in the British concession widened after Western legal jurisdiction intensified and narrowed after it abated.