Credit Markets in Brazil: The Role of Judicial Enforcement and Other Institutions

Abstract

Although much progress has been made in understanding the importance of institutional failure in explaining creditors` unwillingness to finance firms and individuals, the pertinent empirical literature still has an important shortcoming: it does not separate out the effects of legal protection, accounting standards and judicial enforcement. This paper tries to overcome this gap by analyzing the discrete effect of the quality of judicial enforcement on the performance of credit markets.