Atz, Ulrich; Eliason, Blake; Lipsitz, Michael; … - 2026
We measure how the contractual balance of power between franchisors and franchisees has shifted over 2009-2024 by analyzing a large corpus of Franchise Disclosure Documents and surveying over 300 franchisees. Coding more than 20 provisions across 4,500 chains, we find that franchisee autonomy...