This article examines the railway concessions in France in the 19th century as examples of a principal-agent relationship between the State and a contractor. I show that one of the main assumptions of the agency theory, the asymmetric information at the benefit of the agent, is not verified. I...

This article examines the railway concessions in France in the 19th century as examples of a principal – agent relationship between the state and a contractor. I show that one of the main assumptions of the agency theory, the asymmetric information at the benefit of the agent, is not verified....