Beyond the personal-anonymous divide. Agency relations in powers of attorney in France in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Fabien Eloire (), Claire Lemercier () and Veronica Aoki Santarosa
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Fabien Eloire: CLERSÉ - Centre Lillois d’Études et de Recherches Sociologiques et Économiques - UMR 8019 - Université de Lille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Claire Lemercier: CSO - Centre de sociologie des organisations (Sciences Po, CNRS) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Veronica Aoki Santarosa: University of Michigan [Ann Arbor] - University of Michigan System

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Abstract: Powers of attorney are often interpreted as evidence of trust among the parties involved. We build a novel dataset of notarized powers of attorney, capturing a wide variety of agency relationships in four large French commercial cities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to test hypotheses on the relational basis of economic relationships. We find little support for the idea of a radical shift from personal to anonymous relationships during our period. Our results point to more nuanced transformations. The preference for proxies in the same occupation as the principal somewhat declined, while professional proxies emerged and principals used relational chains, especially involving notaries, to find proxies.

Keywords: power of attorney; proxy form; trust; agency relations; procuration; mandat; confiance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
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Published in The Economic History Review, 2019, 72 (4), pp.1229-1250. ⟨10.1111/ehr.12784⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01358365

DOI: 10.1111/ehr.12784

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