Over the past two hundred years, large, modern firms have tended to replace small, family businesses. In parallel, the family has declined as a social institution. We suggest that these developments are interrelated. Because information of cheating in market transactions spreads only gradually...

Voluntary environmental agreements are oftensuspected to promote collusive practicesbetween participating firms. The paperaddresses the antitrust implications ofGermany's voluntary Dual Management System forPackaging Waste Collection and Recycling (DSD). It uses analytical tools of the...

Looking through contributions about microeconomic theory, from classics to modern theory, it is possible to identify various attitudes on the role that firms play in the market. To simplify the existing multiplicity of opinion, two distinct positions can be recognized: 1) the first one considers...

The paper begins by providing a brief overview and discussion of the modern economics of organization, concentrating in particular on the work of incomplete contract theorists. I then turn to a discussion of Loasby’s view of the firm and incomplete contracts. The point here is that while...

Recent thinking has emphasized the importance of consistency in a firm’s compensation policy. By starting from Williamson’s ideas about idiosyncratic exchange, this view can be supplied with some theoretical foundation. At the same time, the consistency view can be applied to a number of...

Entrepreneurship is an important process in regional economic development. Especially the continued growth of a minority of new firms is of major significance to the commercialization of new ideas and employment growth. These growing new firms are transforming on a structural basis, like...