We present a model of recent institutional developments in litigation funding across several European jurisdictions. They combine contingency fees with third party cover for cost in the event of losing the case: we call these "Third Party Contingency" (TPC) contracts. A TPC contract can make...

Labor law limits the freedom of individual firms and agents to deviate from the clauses prescribed by collective wage agreements. We show that employers´ associations and unions may exploit this legal framework to stabilize product market cartels. This new view on the institution of collective...

The medieval Church is viewed as a franchise system. The paper analyzes the licensing of the friars as an institutional innovation which the popes of the 13th century initiated in order to appropriate the rents made possible both by the systematic development of the concept of purgatory and the...