A series of semi-structured interviews conducted with Brazilian legal and financial professionals dealing with issues relating to the relationship between law and finance. Interviews touch on topics concerning the role and functioning of substantive law and legal institutions in the raising of finance, and the way in which the process of law reform in this field is conducted. The aim of this project is to examine the role of law in economic development in the‘rising powers’ of China, Russia, India and Brazil. The work will analyse how far the quality of legal and other formal institutions has affected financial development and economic growth in these countries, and whether reliance on informal institutions poses an obstacle to their future growth. The project will adopt an inter-disciplinary, multi-methods approach, combining quantitative analysis of the extent and nature of correlations between legal and financial development, with qualitative, fieldwork-based research aimed at building up a detailed, micro-institutional account of the perceptions and strategies of actors involved in legal and financial reforms. It will make use of legal and financial datasets to carry out time-series and panel data analysis capable of specifying causal links between legal institutions and economic development. The fieldwork will focus on the role played in each country by the banking sector and capital markets as sources of finance for firms, and on how government reconciles or combines its continuing role as owner of financial and industrial enterprise with its emerging role as a regulator of banks and securities markets.

Interviewees were selected non-randomly, with the goal being to identify a broad cross-section of professional expertise. Initial prospects were identified using directories of professionals and existing contacts. Further contacts were then identified based on interviewees' suggestions. Interviewees were sent a list of "topics for discussion" (in documentation folder) in advance of the interview. These were then used to form the basis for a semi-structured discussion. However the questions were not followed rigidly, and diversions were permitted where interviewees raised additional topics of interest. The interviews were recorded where interviewees permitted this.