Projects / Programmes
LAW OF DEBTORS AND CREDITORS - A NORMATIVE AND EMPIRICAL LEGAL ANALYSIS
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 5.05.00 |
Social sciences |
Law |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| S110 |
Social sciences |
Juridical sciences |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 5.05 |
Social Sciences |
Law |
Civil enforcement law, insolvency law, bankruptcy, white collar crime, empirical legal research
Researchers (26)
Organisations (4)
Abstract
Abstract
The legal regulation of the relation between the debtor and his creditor(s) is one of the most important legal regulations in a modern, economy and consumer leading society. The legal regulation of this relationship is divided into two main legal fields namely the law of the individual enforcement proceedings and the insolvency law. The main difference between those two legal fields is in the fact, that individual enforcement laws are governing proceedings of an individual creditor claiming payment of his due debt whereas insolvency law governs the issues of the general enforcement over the insolvent debtor assets with the purpose of paying all of (multiple) the debtor’s creditors. Insolvency procedures are considered as a general enforcement procedure over an insolvent debtor with multiple creditors.
From the Law and Economics perspective insolvency law has a justifiable cause only because, due to the well-known common pool problem, individual enforcements with multiple creditors under the rules of game theory should be less efficient than those of insolvency law. This means that an efficient legal system should use insolvency law procedures only if they are more efficient when a debtor has multiple creditors, than as a set of individual enforcement procedures would be. On the other hand, there is a strong theoretical direction in the literature that opposes the law and economics logic. This strand of thought follows the idea that both procedures have quite different goals and as a consequence cannot be directly compared.
The first core goal of our proposed research project is to bring additional, more European insights into the, more or less U.S. oriented debate, on the question how similar or different are or should be the goals of the compared legal fields and what theoretical limitations one must set in order to provide a meaningful and justified efficiency comparison.
There is a very well established literature on the economic efficiency of insolvency procedures, but surprisingly, to the best of our knowledge, there is virtually none law and economic theory on the efficiency of individual enforcement laws. As the theory has not yet established generally accepted standards of measuring the efficiency of individual enforcement procedures, at this time point, we are not able to compare the economic efficiency of those to legal regimes which govern similar legal relationships, namely the relationship between a debtor and its creditor(s).
As a result, our second core goal is to develop a coherent law and economics definition of criteria that would define potential measurements to analyse the economic efficiency of an individual enforcement procedure, considering the limits defined by the fundamental rights of debtors.
A comprehensive assessment of the ex-post efficiency of Slovenian insolvency law system is the third goal of our proposed project. As we have been working in this field for years and have started to establish handmade datasets on Slovenian insolvency law cases, this project would enable us to finally connect our efforts into a complete assessment. For the purpose of the third goal we will prepare a huge, hand collected data of more than 4.000 insolvency case from the Slovenian Court Records.
The fourth part of our proposed project also addresses a rather novel subject. Both legal fields deal with questions that are traditionally very politically sensitive, and lawmakers are often very inclined to follow the public opinion, which is generally very debtor hostile. The public predominantly connects debtors with criminals and fraudsters, although the circumstances of the individual cases may be very delicate and different to that general perception. Regardless, unpaying debtors behave in ways that are socially deviant, and understanding their behavior would be conducive towards a better assessment of procedures and methods used when forcing them to comply with conformist roles.
Significance for science
The research proposal is very ambitious as it has several international and national important goals and potential outcomes.
We seek to provide a novel law and economics theory of individual enforcement procedures, which to our best knowledge, has international not yet been done.
Secondly, since we are able to gather almost all data on Slovenian bankruptcy cases and comparative datasets in US and especially in European countries are much scarcer, the project results can be a very beneficial contribution to the insights of specific bankruptcy legal institutions worldwide.
As empirical legal research in Slovenia is very scarce and has a minor role in drafting legislation, the results of the project will be highly relevant to the Slovenian legislator and the government. They will be able to use our scientific normative findings, our positive analysis and our empirical result in future amendments of the relevant law. As no such work has ever been done in the Slovenian legal scholarship, the proposed project is a great example of how legal and economics science could constructively contribute towards better legal regulation. As empirical legal research is nowadays predominantly done by economists and econometrist, which means that important legal insights are often, minimizes or misunderstood. The significance of our proposed research is in the idea that empirical research has to be conducted as an auxiliary tool, as a method to validate previous rigorous traditional legal research.
Last but not least our research on the topic of executives’ self-perception as well as their ex-post rationalizations will bring novel insights into the mode of thought of executives and will enable future research on how to motive individuals to not cross the thin line between criminal and non - criminal acts.
During the implementation of the project knowledge gained through the research will immediately be transferred to the educational process at undergraduate and graduate levels at national universities, as well as in foreign universities, where our colleagues, familiar with our findings, teach.
We seek to publish the result of our work in well-established foreign journals. At least one scientific paper published in SSCI or SCOPUS indexed journal is envisaged for each WP. Secondly the result of our work will also be actively disseminated to the professional public either through lectures and participation in professional conferences as also trough written contributions prepared for professional journals.
Significance for the country
The research proposal is very ambitious as it has several international and national important goals and potential outcomes.
We seek to provide a novel law and economics theory of individual enforcement procedures, which to our best knowledge, has international not yet been done.
Secondly, since we are able to gather almost all data on Slovenian bankruptcy cases and comparative datasets in US and especially in European countries are much scarcer, the project results can be a very beneficial contribution to the insights of specific bankruptcy legal institutions worldwide.
As empirical legal research in Slovenia is very scarce and has a minor role in drafting legislation, the results of the project will be highly relevant to the Slovenian legislator and the government. They will be able to use our scientific normative findings, our positive analysis and our empirical result in future amendments of the relevant law. As no such work has ever been done in the Slovenian legal scholarship, the proposed project is a great example of how legal and economics science could constructively contribute towards better legal regulation. As empirical legal research is nowadays predominantly done by economists and econometrist, which means that important legal insights are often, minimizes or misunderstood. The significance of our proposed research is in the idea that empirical research has to be conducted as an auxiliary tool, as a method to validate previous rigorous traditional legal research.
Last but not least our research on the topic of executives’ self-perception as well as their ex-post rationalizations will bring novel insights into the mode of thought of executives and will enable future research on how to motive individuals to not cross the thin line between criminal and non - criminal acts.
During the implementation of the project knowledge gained through the research will immediately be transferred to the educational process at undergraduate and graduate levels at national universities, as well as in foreign universities, where our colleagues, familiar with our findings, teach.
We seek to publish the result of our work in well-established foreign journals. At least one scientific paper published in SSCI or SCOPUS indexed journal is envisaged for each WP. Secondly the result of our work will also be actively disseminated to the professional public either through lectures and participation in professional conferences as also trough written contributions prepared for professional journals.
Most important scientific results
Interim report
Most important socioeconomically and culturally relevant results
