This project studies the economic consequences of the law of business organizations in major economies over the past two hundred years. Our research addresses questions that have been at the center of recent debates in legal, economic, and historical research, as well as in the policy arena: how to structure the internal governance and external regulation of corporations so as to encourage investment and minimize abuse by insiders; how to promote the creation and growth of innovative small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), particularly in developing countries; and, more generally, how to extract lessons from the history of the world’s most successful economies that can be used to improve the performance of the poorest. Our research challenges two assumptions that have characterized much of the current scholarship: the general superiority of the corporation as a form of business organization; and the greater support and protection afforded business by Anglo-American legal institutions.

The original project was started by Naomi Lamoreaux and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal. I joined later (along with Ron Harris) and have since worked on additional, related issues in other countries with additional co-authors: Cihan Artunç, Susana Martínez Rodríguez, and Jakob Scheebacher. All of my publications from this project are listed on this site.