The impact of FDI on total factor productivity in Hungary during the 1990s' is assessed with a large enterprise panel. Foreign equity is associated with higher productivity levels and has a substantial, positive spillover effect on aggregate TFP growth. However, this benefit is significant only when associated with export orientation, while inward-looking FDI has negative side effects. Regionally, the north-western area, close to EU borders, benefits much more from FDI, whether foreign-owned or locally-owned private firms are considered. Otherwise, only the later absorb a reduced volume of externalities. Finally, State ownership implies lower levels of productivity, but does not hinder the capacity to respond to market incentives, including FDI induced externalities.

Since LLSV early 1998 paper, a growing body of research has argued that "legal origins" have a country-specific, time-invariant effect on property rights and economic development. Following upon LLSV's own methodology, an original data-set of 51 bankruptcy laws has been built: it ranges over 15 European countries and more than hundred years , and summarises how the rights and incentives of the parties were defined, as the procedure unfold. The first conclusion is that all legal traditions protected strongly creditors' rights, over the whole period; only English law comes out prima facie as less protective. Evidences then suggest that the evolution of these laws was influenced less by their past than by continent-wide trends, arguably linked to capitalist development. An early century model thus saw heavy repression of failed debtors and highly regulated procedures. After a transition period from the late 1860's to the late 1880s', prison for debt was abandoned, rehabilitation became easier, and the parties got much more room to bargain.

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