Revista da EMERJ - V. 21 - N. 3 - Setembro/Dezembro - 2019 - Tomo 1

 R. EMERJ, Rio de Janeiro, v. 21, n. 3, t. 1, p. 72-86, set.-dez., 2019  80 TOMO 1 economic growth (although such a reference might have been appropriate, in light of the substance of the reform); c) finally, the reform of 2003 was enacted by means of a specific law, dedicated to changes in the field of civil procedure. 28 F. One can detect dramatic changes to this approach to civil justice reform since 2005, that can be fully explained only if takes account of the ongoing influence of the Doing Business annual reports and their success in attracting the attention of policy-makers and government officials in Italy. The Doing Business Project has already provoked a considerable amount of reactions from legal scholars in the United States and beyond. Yet, there are a number of reasons why it is timely for a civil procedure scholar to intervene with comments 29 . First of all, the pilot-project that led to the launch of the Doing Business Project was a world-wide survey on civil procedure. 30 Secondly, consider the thesis underpinning the Doing Business Project, i.e. that legal origin impacts economic growth and the common law is more conducive to economic growth than the civil law. Now, while the difference between civil and common law might not be relevant for most areas of law surveyed by the legal origins literature, yet, the civil law/common law divide remains relevant for civil procedure. 31 Thirdly, both explanations proffered for the greater impact of the common law on economic development – greater independence of common law judges and the greater adaptability of the common law – are both mainly grounded in differences of procedure. 32 By focusing on the key features of the Doing Business reports one can identify how these reports are the fundamental cause of the changes in Italian civil procedure since 2005. 28 Cf. Decreto legislativo no. 5 of 2003. 29 The Doing Business Project and has not gained the attention of civil-procedure scholars yet, with few exceptions, Kern , Justice between Simplification and Formalism. A discussion and critique of the World Bank sponsored Lex Mundi Project on Efficiency of Civil Procedure, 2007. 30 Cf. Working Paper n. 8890 (2002) of National Bureau of Economic Research (Cambridge, Massachusetts), http:// www.nber.org, (zuletzt abgerufen 22.09.2017); Djankov/La Porta/Lopez-de-Silanes/Schleifer , Courts, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2003, 453. 31 Damaška , The Common Law / Civil Law Divide: Residual Truth of a Misleading Distinction, in: Chase/Walker (Hg.), Common Law, Civil Law and the Future of Categories, 2010. 32 Michaels , Comparative Law by Numbers? Legal Origins Thesis Doing Business Reports and the Silence of Traditional Comparative Law, 57 The American Journal of Comparative Law, 765 (2009), 781.