Novel liquid crystalline compounds with racemic and enantiomerically pure 2,2-difluoro-, 2,2-dichloro-, 2,2-dibromo-, and 2,2-bis(trifluoromethyl)-cyclopropane-1-carboxylate end groups have been synthesized. The Ps values, tilt angles, and response times of SmC* mixtures containing 10 wt% of the novel optically active liquid crystalline compounds in a SmC base mixture were measured. and the potential of the novel compounds as chiral dopants for ferroelectric liquid crystal mixtures was estimated. The novel liquid crystalline compounds with racemic bis(trifluoromethyl)cyclopropane have a remarkably strong tendency to form smectic phases SmB and SmA. The bistrifluoromethyl derivatives exhibited only SmB and SmA phases although the corresponding compounds with 2,2-difluoro-, 2,2-dichloro-, and 2,2-dibromocyclopropane rings showed nematic or chiral nematic phases. In some cases, almost perfect substitutions of the nematic phases by the smectic phases upon changing the substituents from halogen to trifluoromethyl were observed.