Economic arrangements, Ramseyer writes, are structured and implemented with the intent and hope that they will be carried out with 'care, intelligence, discretion, and effort'. Yet entrepreneurs work with partial information about the products, and people, they are dealing with. 'Contracting in...

Medieval Japanese governments only haphazardly enforced claims to scarce resources. Necessarily, this presented landholders with a void. To obtain the enforcement they needed, many turned to institutions affiliated with the fractious Buddhist faith instead. Temples and monasteries enjoyed an...