IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jlawec/doi10.1086-663095.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Secret of Growth Is Financing Secrets: Corporate Law and Growth Economics

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Cooter
  • Hans Bernd Schäfer

Abstract

Innovative businesses unite capital and new ideas, which requires overcoming the double trust dilemma: investors fear losing their wealth and innovators fear losing their ideas. To overcome this dilemma, seventeenth-century spice traders invented the joint stock company with an essential feature of modern corporations: entitlements to marketable shares of future profits. Using the corporate form, innovative business ventures can often be organized so that innovators expect to earn more from their share of profits than from stealing the investors' money, and investors expect to earn more by preserving the company's secrets than by disseminating them. The corporation thus provides a protected space for holding creative secrets while developing them. By developing the innovations that transform economies, the corporation became the dominant economic form of business organization.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Cooter & Hans Bernd Schäfer, 2011. "The Secret of Growth Is Financing Secrets: Corporate Law and Growth Economics," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(S4), pages 105-123.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlawec:doi:10.1086/663095
    DOI: 10.1086/663095
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/663095
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/663095
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/663095?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Doidge, Craig & Karolyi, G. Andrew & Stulz, Rene M., 2004. "Why are foreign firms listed in the U.S. worth more?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 205-238, February.
    2. Hans-Werner Sinn, 1996. "Social insurance, incentives and risk taking," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 3(3), pages 259-280, July.
    3. Bruce Kogut & Udo Zander, 1993. "Knowledge of the Firm and the Evolutionary Theory of the Multinational Corporation," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 24(4), pages 625-645, December.
    4. Oren Bar-Gill & Michal Barzuza & Lucian Bebchuk, 2006. "The Market for Corporate Law," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 162(1), pages 134-160, March.
    5. World Bank, 2006. "World Development Indicators 2006," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 8151.
    6. Bengt Holmstrom & John Roberts, 1998. "The Boundaries of the Firm Revisited," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 73-94, Fall.
    7. Brooks, Richard R W, 2002. "Liability and Organizational Choice," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 45(1), pages 91-125, April.
    8. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez‐De‐Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 1999. "Corporate Ownership Around the World," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(2), pages 471-517, April.
    9. repec:wbk:wbpubs:12425 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Bruce Kogut & Udo Zander, 1996. "What Firms Do? Coordination, Identity, and Learning," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 7(5), pages 502-518, October.
    11. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    12. Hart, Oliver, 1995. "Firms, Contracts, and Financial Structure," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198288817.
    13. Black, Bernard & Kim, Woochan, 2012. "The effect of board structure on firm value: A multiple identification strategies approach using Korean data," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(1), pages 203-226.
    14. World Bank, 2005. "World Development Indicators 2005," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 12426.
    15. Nenova, Tatiana, 2003. "The value of corporate voting rights and control: A cross-country analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 325-351, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Méon, Pierre-Guillaume & Sekkat, Khalid, 2015. "The formal and informal institutional framework of capital accumulation," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 754-771.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Choi, Paul Moon Sub & Chung, Chune Young & Vo, Xuan Vinh & Wang, Kainan, 2020. "Are better-governed firms more innovative? Evidence from Korea," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 263-279.
    2. René M. Stulz, 2007. "The Limits of Financial Globalization," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 19(1), pages 8-15, January.
    3. Oded Cohen, 2020. "Measuring Corporate Governance Quality in Concentrated-Ownership Firms," Bank of Israel Working Papers 2020.06, Bank of Israel.
    4. Michael R. King & Dan Segal, 2009. "The Long-Term Effects of Cross-Listing, Investor Recognition, and Ownership Structure on Valuation," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(6), pages 2393-2421, June.
    5. Claessens, Stijn & Yurtoglu, B. Burcin, 2013. "Corporate governance in emerging markets: A survey," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 15(C), pages 1-33.
    6. Mike W. Peng & Garry D. Bruton & Ciprian V. Stan & Yuanyuan Huang, 2016. "Theories of the (state-owned) firm," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 33(2), pages 293-317, June.
    7. Alex Chan & Hoi Cheung, 2012. "Cultural Dimensions, Ethical Sensitivity, and Corporate Governance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 110(1), pages 45-59, September.
    8. Kannan Srikanth & Phanish Puranam, 2014. "The Firm as a Coordination System: Evidence from Software Services Offshoring," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(4), pages 1253-1271, August.
    9. La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 2000. "Investor protection and corporate governance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1-2), pages 3-27.
    10. Jian Zhang, 2018. "Public Governance and Corporate Fraud: Evidence from the Recent Anti-corruption Campaign in China," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 148(2), pages 375-396, March.
    11. Naeem Tabassum & Satwinder Singh, 2020. "Corporate Governance and Organisational Performance," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-030-48527-6, January.
    12. Goergen, Marc & Renneboog, Luc, 2008. "Contractual corporate governance," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 166-182, June.
    13. Craig Doidge & G. Andrew Karolyi & Karl V. Lins & Darius P. Miller & René M. Stulz, 2009. "Private Benefits of Control, Ownership, and the Cross‐listing Decision," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(1), pages 425-466, February.
    14. von Kalckreuth, Ulf, 2005. "A "wreckers theory" of financial distress," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2005,40, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    15. Benjamin Maury & Eva Liljeblom, 2009. "Oligarchs, political regime changes, and firm valuation1," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 17(3), pages 411-438, July.
    16. Kaouthar Lajili, 2015. "Embedding human capital into governance design: a conceptual framework," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 19(4), pages 741-762, November.
    17. Luc Laeven & Ross Levine, 2008. "Complex Ownership Structures and Corporate Valuations," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(2), pages 579-604, April.
    18. Ricardo Leal & André Carvalhal-da-Silva, 2005. "Corporate Governance and Value in Brazil (and in Chile)," Research Department Publications 3208, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    19. Gur Aminadav & Elias Papaioannou, 2020. "Corporate Control around the World," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(3), pages 1191-1246, June.
    20. Paul André & Walid Ben-Amar & Samir Saadi, 2014. "Family firms and high technology Mergers & Acquisitions," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 18(1), pages 129-158, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:jlawec:doi:10.1086/663095. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JLE .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.