Ownership and Control in the Entrepreneurial Firm: An International History of Private Limited Companies

Timothy Guinnane, Ron Harris (), Naomi Lamoreaux () and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal ()
Additional contact information
Ron Harris: Tel Aviv University
Naomi Lamoreaux: UCLA and NBER
Jean-Laurent Rosenthal: UCLA and NBER

Working Papers from Economic Growth Center, Yale University

Abstract: We use the history of private limited liability companies (PLLCs) to challenge two pervasive assumptions in the literature: (1) Anglo-American legal institutions were better for economic development than continental Europe’s civil-law institutions; and (2) the corporation was the superior form of business organization. Data on the number and types of firms organized in France, Germany, the UK, and the US show that that the PLLC became the form of choice for small- and medium-size enterprises wherever and whenever it was introduced. The PLLC’s key advantage was its flexible internal governance rules that allowed its users to limit the threat of untimely dissolution inherent in partnerships without taking on the full danger of minority oppression that the corporation entailed. The PLLC was first successfully introduced in Germany, a code country, in 1892. Great Britain, a common-law country followed in 1907, and France, a code country, in 1925. The laggard was the US, a common-law country whose courts had effectively killed earlier attempts to enact the form.

Keywords: limited company; partnership; corporation; legal regime; common law; civil law (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G3 K22 N8 O16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 63 pages
Date: 2007-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-law
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Working Paper: Ownership and Control in the Entrepreneurial Firm: An International History of Private Limited Companies (2007)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:egc:wpaper:959

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