EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

On limited liability and the development of capital markets: An historical analysis

Michael Smart

Working Papers from University of Toronto, Department of Economics

Abstract: We study the consequences of the introduction of widespread limited liability for corporations, with particular reference to the liability reforms introduced in Great Britain during the nineteenth century. In the view that is most widely accepted, by reducing transactions costs associated with screening and monitoring in capital markets, limited liability increases efficiency of capital markets and enhances investment incentives for individuals and firms. But the standard transaction-cost perspective does not explain several important stylized facts of the British experience. We construct an alternative model of asymmetric information and default in credit markets that accounts for this and other features of the British experience. In the model, a firm's decision to adopt limited liability may be interpreted in equilibrium as a signal the firm is more likely to default. Hence less risky firms may choose unlimited liability or forego investments entirely. We show the model may have multiple, Pareto-rankable equilibria in which different proportions of the firms choose to incorporate with limited liability and different levels of aggregate investment result. Thus the choice of liability rule can lead to ``development traps,'' in which profitable investments are not undertaken, through its effect on equilibrium beliefs of uninformed investors in the economy. We apply the theory to a data set describing the first English firms to incorporate after the legislative reforms of 1856.

JEL-codes: G3 K2 N2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25 pages
Date: 1996-06-27
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/public/workingPapers/UT-ECIPA-MSMART-96-02.ps MainText (application/postscript)
https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/public/workingPapers/UT-ECIPA-MSMART-96-02.pdf MainText (application/postscript)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tor:tecipa:msmart-96-02

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from University of Toronto, Department of Economics 150 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by RePEc Maintainer ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-30
Handle: RePEc:tor:tecipa:msmart-96-02