Description

This video lecture explains why stateless commerce arises and persists. Why are mechanisms that were relied upon in the fifteenth-century merchant fairs still being used in twenty-first-century New York? Why do pre-modern modes of organization remain when much of the world has embraced, and relies upon, modern state-sponsored instruments to support commercial exchange?

References

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Klein, B. and Leffler, K. B. (1981). The Role of Market Forces in Assuring Contractual Performance. Journal of Political Economy, 89(4), 615-641.

Richman, B. D. (2004). Firms, Courts, and Reputation Mechanisms: Towards a Positive Theory of Private Ordering. Columbia Law Review, 104, 2328.

Williamson, O. E. (1975) Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications. Simon and Schuster Publishing.

Williamson, O. E. (1985). The Economic Institutions of Capitalism. New York: Free Press.

Williamson, O. E. (1996). Mechanisms of Governance. New York: Oxford University Press.