Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations is the most influential work in economics ever written. But it is neither complete nor perfect. Smith's theory of the firm, or the lack thereof, is one of the masterpiece's blind spots. Smith thought history had shown that joint stock companies cannot compete with...

Deciding between mandatory and/or default rules (or as they are also called: eligible law, enabling rules, optional rules, legal menus, rules allowing contracting around, fallback provisions, and dispositives Recht) is a fundamental choice for the law. To what degree do legislators, courts,...