The Emergence of Strong Property Rights: Speculation from history

How did citizens acquire rights protecting their property from the depredations of the government? In this paper, we argue that one important factor strengthening respect for property is how it is distributed. When there is some specificity associated with property, and property is held by those who are most productive, the distribution of property becomes relatively easy to defend. By contrast, when property is owned by those who get rents simply by virtue of ownership, the distribution of property becomes much harder to defend. We speculate on why some countries have been able to develop a climate of respect for property rights while others have not.

The Firm as a Dedicated Hierarchy: A Theory of the Origin and Growth of Firms

A fundamental problem entrepreneurs face in the formative stages of their businesses is how to provide incentives for employees to protect, rather than steal, the source of organizational rents. We study how the entrepreneur's response to this problem will determine the organization's internal structure, growth, and its eventual size. In particular, our model suggests large, steep hierarchies will predominate in physical capital intensive industries, and these will typically have seniority-based promotion policies. By contrast, flat hierarchies will be seen in human capital intensive industries. These will have up-or-out promotion systems, where experienced managers either become owners or are fired. Furthermore, flat hierarchies will have more distinctive technologies or cultures than steep hierarchies. The model points to some essential differences between organized hierarchies and markets.

What Do We Know About Capital Structure? Some Evidence from International Data

We investigate the determinants of capital structure choice by analyzing the financing decisions of public firms in the major industrialized countries. At an aggregate level, firm leverage is fairly similar across the G-7 countries. We find that factors identified by previous studies as important in determining the cross- section of capital structure in the U.S. affect firm leverage in other countries as well. However, a deeper examination of the U.S. and foreign evidence suggests that the theoretical underpinnings of the observed correlations are still largely unresolved.

The Great Reversals: The Politics of Financial Development in the 20th Century

We show that the development of the financial sector does not change monotonically over time. In particular, we find that by most measures, countries were more financially developed in 1913 than in 1980 and only recently have they surpassed their 1913 levels. This pattern is inconsistent with most recent theories of why cross-country differences in financial development do not track differences in economic development, since these theories are based upon time-invariant factors, such as a country's legal origin. We propose instead an 'interest group' theory of financial development. Incumbents oppose financial development because it breeds competition. The theory predicts that incumbents' opposition will be weaker when an economy allows both cross-border trade and capital flows. This theory can go some way in accounting for the cross-country differences and the time series variation of financial development.

Financial Dependence and Growth

Does finance affect economic growth? A number of studies have identified a positive correlation between the level of development of a country's financial sector and the rate of growth of its per capita income. As has been noted elsewhere, the observed correlation does not necessarily imply a causal relationship. This paper examines whether financial development facilitates economic growth by scrutinizing one rationale for such a relationship; that financial development reduces the costs of external finance to firms. Specifically, we ask whether industrial sectors that are relatively more in need of external finance develop disproportionately faster in countries with more developed financial markets. We find this to be true in a large sample of countries over the 1980s. We show this result is unlikely to be driven by omitted variables, outliers, or reverse causality.

The Influence of the Financial Revolution on the Nature of Firms

Major technological, regulatory, and institutional changes have made finance more widely available in recent years, amounting to a bone fide 'financial revolution'. In this article, we focus on the impact the financial revolution has had on the way firms are (or should be) organized and managed, and on the policy consequences.

What Determines Firm Size?

Motivated by theories of the firm, which we classify as technological' or organizational,' we analyze the determinants of firm size across industries and across countries in a sample of 15 European countries. We find that, on average, firms facing larger markets are larger. At the industry level, we find firms in the utility sector are large, perhaps because they enjoy a natural, or officially sanctioned, monopoly. Capital intensive industries, high wage industries, and industries that do a lot of R&D have larger firms, as do industries that require little external financing. At the country level, the most salient findings are that countries with efficient judicial systems have larger firms, and, correcting for institutional development, there is little evidence that richer countries have larger firms. Interestingly, institutional development, such as greater judicial efficiency, seems to be correlated with lower dispersion in firm size within an industry. The effects of interactions (between an industry's characteristics and a country's environment) on size are perhaps the most novel results in the paper, and are best able to discriminate between theories. As the judicial system improves, the difference in size between firms in capital intensive industries and firms in industries that use little physical capital diminishes, a finding consistent with size of firms in industries dependent on external finance is larger in countries with better financial markets, suggesting that financial constraints limit average firm size.

The Governance of the New Enterprise

The changing nature of the corporation forces us to re-examine much of what we take for granted in corporate governance. What precisely is the entity that is being governed? How does the governance system obtain power over it, and what determines the division of power between various stakeholders? And is the objective of allocating power only to enhance the returns of outside investors? In this paper we argue that, given the changing nature of the firm, the focus of corporate governance must shift from alleviating the agency problems between managers and shareholders to studying mechanisms that give the firm the power to provide incentives to human capital. We also provide some examples of the kind of subjects that should now be the main focus of study in corporate governance.

Power in a Theory of the Firm

Transactions take place in the firm rather than in the market because the firm offers agents" who make specific investments power. Past literature emphasizes the allocation of ownership as the" primary mechanism by which the firm does this. Within the contractibility assumptions of this" literature, we identify a potentially superior mechanism, the regulation of access to critical resources. " Access can be better than ownership because: i) the power agents get from access is more contingent" on them making the right investment; ii) ownership has adverse effects on the incentive to specialize. " The theory explains the importance of internal organization and third party ownership. "