Statehood Experience, Legal Traditions and Climate Change Policies

James Ang and Per Fredriksson

No 1610, Economic Growth Centre Working Paper Series from Nanyang Technological University, School of Social Sciences, Economic Growth Centre

Abstract: This paper investigates how the implementation of modern climate change policies is related to former colonies' length of state history and their legal heritage. We argue that countries with longer statehood experience around the time of colonization were better equipped to implement the legal philosophies transplanted by their colonial powers. Therefore, the implications of receiving British common law versus French civil law should be particularly important in countries with a greater accumulated history of statehood. Using a cross section of up to 78 former colonies, our results provide support for this hypothesis. In particular, our estimates demonstrate that common law countries have weaker modern climate change policies than civil law countries and the difference is in ated by a longer statehood experience, measured by the length of state history from 1-1800 AD. Legal origin has no e ect in areas which, by the time of colonization, had no statehood experience.

Keywords: Environmental policy; climate change; state antiquity; history; state capacity; legal origins; colonization. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K23 O44 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2016-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env, nep-his, nep-law and nep-sea
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http://www3.ntu.edu.sg/hss2/egc/wp/2016/2016-10.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: STATEHOOD EXPERIENCE, LEGAL TRADITIONS, AND CLIMATE CHANGE POLICIES (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nan:wpaper:1610

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