A regulation and transaction cost perspective on the design of corporate law

Hanna Almlöf () and Per-Olof Bjuggren ()
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Hanna Almlöf: Linköping University
Per-Olof Bjuggren: Jönköping International Business School

European Journal of Law and Economics, 2019, vol. 47, issue 3, No 5, 407-433

Abstract: Abstract For the corporate business model to be successful, it is important to align the interests of those who control and finance the firm. Corporate law has here an important task to fulfill. It offers a legal framework that can facilitate parties to conclude mutually preferable agreements at low transaction costs. The purpose of this paper is to show how to design corporate law to fulfill this task and apply this knowledge to a Swedish case. A two-dimension model that simultaneously considers both the regulation intensity and the level of default of corporate law is presented. The earlier literature treats these dimensions separately. By adding a transaction cost perspective to our model, we assess different regulatory techniques and examine how the Swedish legislation can be amended to help corporations by offering a standard contract that lowers the transaction costs of contracting. This can be achieved if default rules or standards of opt-out character are combined with other regulatory techniques with lower transaction costs such as opt-in alternatives and menus. We also show how our model can be used in other studies as a tool to analyze the design of legal rules.

Keywords: Corporate law; Regulation; Contracts; Transaction costs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D23 G32 G38 K22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10657-019-09620-x

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