We analyze empirically the allocation of rights and monetary incentives in automobile franchise contracts. All of these contracts substantially restrict the decision rights of dealers and grant manufacturers extensive rights to specify and enforce dealers' duties. The allocation of decision...

Registering originative business contracts allows entrepreneurs and creditors to choose, and courts to enforce market-friendly ldquo;contractrdquo; rules that protect innocent third parties when adjudicating disputes on subsequent contracts. This reduces information asymmetry for third parties,...

Under team production, those who monitor individual productivity are usually the only ones compensated with a residual that varies with the performance of the team. This pattern is efficient, as is shown by the prevalence of conventional firms, except for small teams and when specialized...

This chapter analyzes titling institutions and the regulation of supporting conveyancing services. After examining the tradeoff of enforcement benefits and consent costs posed by property rights, it explains how different public titling systems (privacy, recording and registration) try to solve...

Computerised databases and the Internet have recently made publication of company accounts potentially less costly and more useful, thanks to electronic filing and universal online access to credit information systems. These developments advise against simplification policies that would reduce...

We explain why European trucking carriers are much smaller and rely more heavily on owner-operators (as opposed to employee drivers) than their US counterparts. Our analysis begins by ruling out differences in technology as the source of those disparities and confirms that standard hypotheses in...

This article examines the private mechanisms used to safeguard quality in auditing, with a view to defining rules capable of facilitating the performance of market forces. An outline is given of a general theory of private quality assurance in auditing, based on the use of quasi-rents to...

This article develops and tests a theory of the institutions that make property rights viable, ensuring their enforcement, mobilizing the collateral value of assets, and promoting growth. In contrast to contractual rights, property rights are enforced in rem, being affected only with the consent...

The provision of non-audit services by auditors to their audit clients reduces total costs, increases technical competence and motivates more intense competition. Furthermore, these services do not necessarily damage auditor independence nor the quality of non-audit services. This assessment...

This paper analyzes the choice of the socially optimal titling system assuming rational individual choices about recording, assurance and registration decisions. It focuses on the enforcement of property rights on land under private titling and the two existing public titling systems, recording...