Are bond markets and bank credits complementary or substitutable? Evidence based on the rule of law and countries’ legal origins

Abstract

Bond and bank financing coexist despite their similarities as debt financing. I hypothesize that strengthening the rule of law in each country impacts corporate monitoring and firms’ financing preferences. I use panel data from 50 countries to analyze how the strength of the rule of law differs depending on countries’ legal origins. By using a regression model with an interaction term, I estimate marginal effects to determine if a stricter rule of law promotes bank or bond financing. The findings show that countries with common-law legal origins tend to have a stronger rule of law than civil law countries. A stronger rule of law increases bank lending but has a negative impact on bond issuance. This effect has a more significant impact in countries with Scandinavian legal origins and only a minor effect in countries with French legal origins. These differences can be attributed to how each country addresses agency problems, concerns regarding bank influence, and the availability of additional banking services.