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Journal of Finance Vol. 68 No. 4 2013

Law, Stock Markets, and Innovation

James Robert Brown1; Gustav Martinsson2,3,4; Bruce C. Petersen5,6

1 Iowa State University · 2 Stockholm School of Economics · 3 Swedish House of Finance · 4 KTH Royal Institute of Technology · 5 Washington University in St. Louis · 6 Issues Research

Abstract

We study a broad sample of firms across 32 countries and find that strong shareholder protections and better access to stock market financing lead to substantially higher long‐run rates of R&D investment, particularly in small firms, but are unimportant for fixed capital investment. Credit market development has a modest impact on fixed investment but no impact on R&D. These findings connect law and stock markets with innovative activities key to economic growth, and show that legal rules and financial developments affecting the availability of external equity financing are particularly important for risky, intangible investments not easily financed with debt.

DOI
10.1111/jofi.12040
Volume
68
Issue
4
Pages
1517-1549
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref openalex

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