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Institutional Support of the Firm: A Theory of Business Registries

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  • Benito Arruñada

Abstract

Registering originative business contracts allows entrepreneurs and creditors to choose, and courts to enforce market-friendly "contract" rules that protect innocent third parties when adjudicating disputes on subsequent contracts. This reduces information asymmetry for third parties, which enhances impersonal trade. It does so without seriously weakening property rights, because it is rightholders who choose or activate the legal rules and can, therefore, minimize the cost of any possible weakening. Registries are essential not only to make the chosen rules public but to ensure rightholders' commitment and avoid rule-gaming, because independent registries make rightholders' choices verifiable by courts. The theory is supported by comparative and historical analyses.

Suggested Citation

  • Benito Arruñada, 2010. "Institutional Support of the Firm: A Theory of Business Registries," Working Papers 508, Barcelona School of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:bge:wpaper:508
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    Cited by:

    1. Luis Costa & Miguel St. Aubyn, 2012. "The Macroeconomic Effects of Legal- Simplification Programmes," Working Papers Department of Economics 2012/12, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    2. Arruñada, Benito, 2016. "How Rome enabled impersonal markets," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 68-84.
    3. Benito Arruñada & Giorgio Zanarone & Nuno Garoupa, 2019. "Property Rights in Sequential Exchange," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 35(1), pages 127-153.
    4. Benito Arruñada, 2015. "The institutions of Roman markets," Economics Working Papers 1471, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Nov 2019.
    5. Benito Arruñada, 2023. "The Roman Familia: A View from the Economics of Property," Working Papers 1407, Barcelona School of Economics.
    6. Lőrinczi, Gyula, 2013. "A cégek eredete [The origin of the firm]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(1), pages 25-46.
    7. Benito Arruñada & Luis Garicano, 2018. "Blockchain: The birth of decentralized governance," Economics Working Papers 1608, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Property rights; theory of the firm; business registries; formalization; starting a business; impersonal transactions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
    • K22 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Business and Securities Law
    • K23 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Regulated Industries and Administrative Law
    • L59 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Other

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