A cross-country analysis of the impact of regulatory quality on commercial case disposition time

Abstract

Commercial courts around the world encounter prolonged legal procedures, which harms businesses that require dispute resolution through the legal system. This paper, for the first time, tests whether a country’s quality of business regulation impacts the average commercial case disposition time. Panel regression analyses of 133 countries from 2006 to 2011 substantiate the negative association between the perceived regulatory quality and the average duration of commercial legal disputes. Surprisingly, the actual regulatory quality does not affect the average duration of a trial.