Jurisdictional Uncertainty. This is a vaguely defined term that refers to weaknesses in property rights and contract-enforcing institutions. The term was coined by Arida, Bacha, and Lara-Resende (2004) who describe it as some form of anticreditor bias, the risk of changing the value of contracts before or at the moment of their execution, and the risk of an unfavorable interpretation of contracts in case of a court ruling. The problem with this hypothesis is that many other emerging market countries do not have stronger institutional frameworks for the defense of property rights and contract enforcement than Brazil and yet have.
