Empirical Analysis of Legal Institutions and Institutional Change: Multiple-Methods Approaches and Their Application to Corporate Governance Research

Empirical Analysis of Legal Institutions and Institutional Change: Multiple-Methods Approaches and Their Application to Corporate Governance Research

John Buchanan, Dominic Heesang Chai, Simon Deakin

Series number :

Serial Number: 
238/2014

Date posted :

February 01 2014

Last revised :

February 27 2014
SSRN Share

Keywords

  • company law • 
  • law and finance • 
  • coevolution • 
  • leximetrics

The claim that institutions matter for economic growth and development has so far received a more extensive theoretical treatment than an empirical or methodological one. Basing our approach on a co-evolutionary conception of relations between law and
the economy, we link theory to method and explore three techniques for analysing legal


institutions empirically: ?leximetric? measurement of legal rules, time-series econometrics,
and interview-based fieldwork. We argue that while robust measurement of institutions is possible, quantitative techniques have their limits, and should be combined with fieldwork in a multiple-methods approach.

Authors

Real name:
John Buchanan
Real name:
Dominic Heesang Chai