Legal Origins Matter – But not All Origins Are European

Abstract

We analyze the impact of legal origin on the constitutional and economic development of British colonies, focusing on non-European origins of legal institutions. Exploiting a unique dataset of biographical data of all 14,206 senior colonial officers listed in the so-called Colonial Office Lists, we show that interaction between colonies in the preparation for independence—proxied by the number of officers stationed in both colonies—results in constitutions that grow comparatively more alike over the years. The fact that more interaction does not show up in constitutional similarity immediately after independence indicates that the channel of influence runs via underlying, intangible norms and cognitions. Officers moving from one colony to the other do not copy legal texts, but bring along ideas & norms shaping the subsequent evolution of constitutions. We infer causality by delving further into the sequence of stationing. We show that countries subject to the same joint influence grow alike, while countries that jointly influence a third colony do not. This suggests that it is not underlying similarity in characteristics that makes colonies more likely to share officers and develop similar legal systems, but the transfer of knowledge via officers that reduces legal distance. Our results suggest that interaction between colonies matters. Legal origins matter—but not all origins are European.