Property Rights Protection Through Litigations: Ownership Bias and the Role of Political Connections

56 Pages Posted: 5 Nov 2012

See all articles by Haitian Lu

Haitian Lu

Hong Kong Polytechnic University - School of Accounting and Finance

Hongbo Pan

School of Economics and Management - Wuhan University

Chenying Zhang

University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School

Date Written: June 6, 2012

Abstract

We use adversarial corporate litigations between state owned and private owned firms in China to examine the strength of state provided formal institutions in protecting private property rights. Based on a unique hand collected data from 3,323 court rulings and 272 settlements on Chinese listed firms during 1998 to 2010, we show state owned firms have a win rate that is 8.6% higher than the private owned ones. Their advantages are most significant on cases with straight forward merits, in provinces where the local legal institutions are weak, and when cases are tried in their home provinces. Nevertheless, private owned firms can, through establishing political ties, increase their win rate in court and partially correct the ownership disadvantages when faced with state owned enterprises. The empirical result is robust to our test of the selection of disputes for litigation, plaintiff effect, lenders effect, and an array of party and case idiosyncrasies.

Keywords: property rights, politically connected firms, corporate litigation, judicial bias, China

JEL Classification: P14, K41

Suggested Citation

Lu, Haitian and Pan, Hongbo and Zhang, Chenying, Property Rights Protection Through Litigations: Ownership Bias and the Role of Political Connections (June 6, 2012). 29th International Conference of the French Finance Association (AFFI) 2012, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2084903 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2084903

Haitian Lu (Contact Author)

Hong Kong Polytechnic University - School of Accounting and Finance ( email )

M715, Li Ka Shing Tower
Hung Hom, Kowloon, Kowloon
Hong Kong

Hongbo Pan

School of Economics and Management - Wuhan University ( email )

Wuhan
China

Chenying Zhang

University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School ( email )

3641 Locust Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6365
United States

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