The Economic Consequences of Organizational Law: Corporations, Partnerships, and Intermediate Forms in France, Germany, the U.K., and the U.S., 1800-2000

这一关于企业组织法的经济后果的合作比较项目涉及目前在法律、经济和历史以及政策领域辩论的核心问题：如何构建企业的内部治理和外部监管，以鼓励投资和最大限度地减少滥用；以及如何促进创新型中小型企业(SME)的创建和发展。中小企业在这项研究中扮演着核心角色，因为它的重要性在以前的工作中被忽视了，而且组织法的影响对这些公司可能特别尖锐。该项目以任何企业家在决定如何组织公司时面临的权衡为出发点。一个问题是过早解散，或者公司可能不得不过早结束业务，从而可能失去一些在技术以及与客户或供应商的关系方面的长期投资。另一个问题是，控股投资者可能会利用他们的权力，以不能使公司价值最大化的方式来引导公司。公司作为一个商业实体，尽量减少过早解散的问题。但正如最近的公司治理问题所表明的那样，公司往往容易受到内部人士或一小撮投资者的滥用。该项目使用法国、德国、美国和英国的案例来研究企业家在不同和不断变化的法律环境中处理这种权衡的方式。研究的中心经验来源包括公司章程样本，其中包含关于原始投资者和治理程序的信息。这些材料由官方来源补充，如制造业普查和税务数据。一项关键的法律创新，私营有限责任公司，揭示了改革的原因和影响，这些改革塑造了公司的创建和管理方式。更广泛的影响：这项研究对学术界和政策界都有更广泛的影响。该项目将有助于向法律和经济学学者展示基于公司原始资料的比较研究的价值。这一一般性问题以及关于中小企业的具体结论直指许多贫穷国家(以及负责帮助贫穷国家的实体，如世界银行)所面临的问题的核心。发展经济学家知道，中小企业对贫穷经济体的增长和发展至关重要。然而，法律框架往往对新公司的创建怀有敌意。通过展示这项法律如何在现在非常富裕的国家帮助或阻碍新公司的形成，这项研究将帮助政策制定者为较贫穷国家提供建议。

This collaborative, comparative project on the economic consequences of the law of business organizations concerns questions that are now central to debates in law, economics, and history, as well as in the policy arena: how to structure the internal governance and external regulation of business enterprises so as to encourage investment and minimize abuses; and how to promote the creation and growth of innovative small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The SME plays a central role in this research because its importance has been overlooked in earlier work, and because the implications of organizational law can be especially acute for these firms. The project takes as its point of departure the trade-off that any entrepreneur faces in deciding how to organize a firm. One problem is untimely dissolution, or the chance that the firm will have to wind up business prematurely and thus potentially lose some longer-term investments in technologies and relationships with customers or suppliers. The other problem is that controlling investors might use their power to guide the firm in ways that do not maximizes its value. The corporation as a business entity minimizes the problem of untimely dissolution. But as recent problems of corporate governance illustrate, corporations are often vulnerable to abuse by insiders or by a small group of investors. This project uses the cases of France, Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom to study the way entrepreneurs have managed this trade-off in different and changing legal environments. The central empirical source for the research consists of samples of articles of association of firms, which contain information on the original investors and governance procedures. This material is supplemented with official sources such as the censuses of manufactures and tax data. A key legal innovation, the private limited-liability company, sheds light on the causes and impact of reforms that shaped the way firms could be created and governed.Broader impacts: This research has broader impacts for both scholarship and the policy world. The project will help demonstrate the value to law and economics scholars of comparative research based on primary source materials for firms. The general issue, as well as the specific findings concerning SMEs, go right to the heart of a problem facing many poor countries (as well as entities charged with helping poor countries, such as the World Bank). Development economists know that SMEs are crucial to the growth and development of poor economies. Often, however, the legal framework is hostile to the creation of new firms. By showing how the law helped or hindered the formation of new firms in what are now very wealthy countries, the research will help policy-makers advise poorer countries.