Private institutions are complementary, both to contracts and the public and general institutions of a society, in that they allow agents to collectively coordinate (and so benefit from economies of scale, from learning effects, and from management of externalities), while avoiding over high...

Digital Technologies make it possible to decentrally settle institutional frameworks based on self-implementation of exclusive rights of use over information and on the self-regulation of on-line communities. Through a decentralized system of IPRs and collective rules setting of this kind agents...

Digital technologies play a major role in the profound changes that characterize political and economic regulations both within nation states and in international relations. They often provide the conditions for these evolutionary processes by means of new modes of information circulation, of...

Efficiency arguments explain why commercial intermediaries exist and will continue to be involved in the exchanges despite the spread of digital networks. Commercial intermediaries provide producers and consumers with a set of information, logistic, securization and insurance (and liquidity)...

Just as medieval municipal republics surrendered to national sovereigns in the past, incumbent states may be replaced in the future by an alternate, global public order. Citizens and merchants would obtain more equal rights, better market infrastructures, and a more efficient provision of public...

This paper seeks to provide a clearer understanding of discrepancies observed in the level, pace and style of e‐business development across countries and industries. It is based on an original survey performed on 1,100 firms in five developed countries. Through in‐depth analyses of the...