Rafael La Porta

Bio: Rafael La Porta is an academic researcher from Dartmouth College. The author has contributed to research in topics: Shareholder & Enforcement. The author has an hindex of 66, co-authored 107 publications receiving 107032 citations. Previous affiliations of Rafael La Porta include Harvard University & National Bureau of Economic Research.

Belief Overreaction and Stock Market Puzzles

Abstract: We construct an index of long term expected earnings growth for S&P500 firms and show that it has remarkable power to jointly predict errors in these expectations and stock returns, in both the aggregate market and the cross section. The evidence supports a mechanism whereby good news cause investors to become too optimistic about earnings growth, for the market as a whole but especially for specific firms. This leads to inflated stock prices and, as beliefs are systematically disappointed, to subsequent low returns in the aggregate market and for specific firms in the cross section. Overreaction of measured long-term expectations helps resolve major asset pricing puzzles without time series or cross-sectional variation in required returns. in long run risk, or in disaster risk are hard to measure. Here we pursue an orthogonal approach: we keep required returns constant and relax rational expectations of fundamentals. We discipline departures from rationality using data on analyst expectations of future earnings growth of listed firms. We show that expectations of long

Letter Grading Government Efficiency

Abstract: We mailed letters to non-existent business addresses in 159 countries (10 per country), and measured whether they come back to the return address in the US and how long it takes. About 60% of the letters were returned, taking over 6 months, on average. The results provide new objective indicators of government efficiency across countries, based on a simple and universal service, and allow us to shed light on its determinants. The evidence suggests that both technology and management quality influence the quality of government.

Investor Protection: Origins, Consequences, and Reform

Abstract: Recent research has documented large differences between countries in ownership concentration in publicly traded firms, in the breadth and depth of capital markets, in dividend policies, and in the access of firms to external finance We suggest that there is a common element to the explanations of these differences, namely how well investors, both shareholders and creditors, are protected by law from expropriation by the managers and controlling shareholders of firms We describe the differences in laws and the effectiveness of their enforcement across countries, discuss the possible origins of these differences, summarize their consequences, and assess potential strategies of corporate governance reform We argue that the legal approach is a more fruitful way to understand corporate governance and its reform than the conventional distinction between bank-centered and market-centered financial systems

The Quality of Goverment

Abstract: We investigate empirically the determinants of the quality of governments in a large cross-section of countries We assess government performance using measures of government intervention, public sector efficiency, public good provision, size of government, and political freedom We find that countries that are poor, close to the equator, ethnolinguistically heterogeneous, use French of socialist laws, or have high proportions of Catholics or Muslims exhibit inferior government performance We also find that the larger governments tend to be the better performing ones The importance of historical factors in explaining the variation in government performance across countries sheds light on the economic, political, and cultural theories of institutions

Diagnostic Expectations and Stock Returns

Abstract: We revisit La Porta’s (1996) finding that returns on stocks with the most optimistic analyst long term earnings growth forecasts are substantially lower than those for stocks with the most pessimistic forecasts. We document that this finding still holds, and present several further facts about the joint dynamics of fundamentals, expectations, and returns for these portfolios. We explain these facts using a new model of belief formation based on a portable formalization of the representativeness heuristic. In this model, analysts forecast future fundamentals from the history of earnings growth, but they over-react to news by exaggerating the probability of states that have become objectively more likely. Intuitively, fast earnings growth predicts future Googles but not as many as analysts believe. We test predictions that distinguish this mechanism from both Bayesian learning and adaptive expectations, and find supportive evidence. A calibration of the model offers a satisfactory account of the key patterns in fundamentals, expectations, and returns.

Law and Finance

Abstract: This paper examines legal rules covering protection of corporate shareholders and creditors, the origin of these rules, and the quality of their enforcement in 49 countries. The results show that common law countries generally have the best, and French civil law countries the worst, legal protections of investors, with German and Scandinavian civil law countries located in the middle. We also find that concentration of ownership of shares in the largest public companies is negatively related to investor protections, consistent with the hypothesis that small, diversified shareholders are unlikely to be important in countries that fail to protect their rights.

Law and Finance

Abstract: This paper examines legal rules covering protection of corporate shareholders and creditors, the origin of these rules, and the quality of their enforcement in 49 countries. The results show that common-law countries generally have the strongest, and Frenchcivil-law countries the weakest, legal protections of investors, with German- and Scandinavian-civil-law countries located in the middle. We also find that concentration of ownership of shares in the largest public companies is negatively related to investor protections, consistent with the hypothesis that small, diversified shareholders are unlikely to be important in countries that fail to protect their rights.

Legal Determinants of External Finance

Abstract: Using a sample of 49 countries, we show that countries with poorer investor protections, measured by both the character of legal rules and the quality of law enforcement, have smaller and narrower capital markets. These findings apply to both equity and debt markets. In particular, French civil law countries have both the weakest investor protections and the least developed capital markets, especially as compared to common law countries.

Corporate Ownership Around the World

Abstract: We use data on ownership structures of large corporations in 27 wealthy economies to identify the ultimate controlling shareholders of these firms. We find that, except in economies with very good shareholder protection, relatively few of these firms are widely held, in contrast to Berle and Means’s image of ownership of the modern corporation. Rather, these firms are typically controlled by families or the State. Equity control by financial institutions is far less common. The controlling shareholders typically have power over firms significantly in excess of their cash f low rights, primarily through the use of pyramids and participation in management.