Our results highlight the importance of the legal protection afforded creditors
and minority shareholders and are closely linked to the recent findings of La
Porta et al. (1997, 1998, 1999b), hereafter referred to as LLSV. These authors
show that the extent to which creditor and minority shareholder rights are
protected explains a great deal of the variation in how firms are funded and
owned across countries. In particular, LLSV (1997) provide evidence from
a sample of 49 countries that weak shareholder rights and poor enforcement
lead to underdeveloped stock markets. Here we show that weak enforcement of
shareholder rights has first-order importance in determining the extent of
exchange rate depreciation and stock market collapse in 1997}98.