This study measures the costs to obtain legal permission to operate small firms in Brazil. Small garment businesses have been chosen due to their relevance for developing countries, and also because the same sector has been studied elsewhere. One hundred firms have been surveyed using the costs...

Three hundred small tomato growers located in Brazilian northeast states, supplied a processing industry. In view of the large number of contract hazards and weak enforcement of clauses, managers have decided to move to the Midwest, where a reduced number of larger farmers have been contracted....

The growing complexity of supply chains poses new challenges for Agricultural Research Centers and statistical agencies. The aim of this perspective paper is to discuss the role of empirical research in understanding the complex forms of governance in agribusiness. The authors argue that there...

This article is about how resources can be conceptualized as bundles of attributes for which one can assign economic property rights. Strategic considerations are deliberately incorporated into the analysis through the assessment of the activities of capture and protection of property rights,...

Most empirical studies in contracting have analyzed contract length within an ex ante focus, when agents pre-specify the desired duration of the transaction as a contractual clause. The present study focuses on contract duration as defined ex post, meaning that the survival of contractual...

This essay departs from the question about the limited adoption of the contractual approach in the field of Agricultural Economics in Brazil. It discusses the relevance of the contractual approach to the theory of the firm, presents the evolution of the studies of coordination in food chains in...

The architecture of complex forms of governance is the focus of this paper. Networks are complex forms of organization designed to govern inter-firm transactions involving horizontal and vertical coordination. The choice among alternative institutional arrangements is affected by...

The objective of this study is to contribute for the theoretical development of vertical coordination in productive systems, shaping the concept of 'stability and diffusion of contractual arrangements'. Considering the well-accepted statement of efficient alignment between transaction...

The focus of this paper is the architecture of complex forms of governance, specifically, the architecture of networks. A network is a complex form of organization designed to govern inter-firm transactions involving horizontal and vertical coordination. The agent´s choice among various...

In the presence of positive transaction costs, institutions and the architecture of organizations take on fundamental importance. This paper measures costs of opening firms in the Brazilian garment industry. The measure of costs to start up a new business in the garment industry in Brazil shows...