Beyond the personal–anonymous divide: agency relations in powers of attorney in France in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Powers of attorney are often interpreted as evidence of trust among the parties involved. We build a novel dataset of notarized powers of attorney, capturing a wide variety of agency relationships in four large French commercial cities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to test hypotheses on the relational basis of economic relationships. We find little support for the idea of a radical shift from personal to anonymous relationships during our period. Our results point to more nuanced transformations. The preference for proxies in the same occupation as the principal somewhat declined, while professional proxies emerged and principals used relational chains, especially involving notaries, to find proxies.     

Who is she and who are we? A reflexive journey in research into the rarity of women in the highest ranks of accountancy

This paper proposes a reflexive examination of research into the rarity of women at the highest hierarchical levels of accountancy, with the aim of contributing to the transformation of gendered structures of domination.We practice reflexivity in two ways. First, we provide an analysis of the relationships between research objects, research design, and the implications of research findings, based on a sample of papers dealing with the rarity of women at the highest levels of accountancy. We show that self-proclaimed “neutral” research that rejects any form of prediction is adopting an illusory position which is detrimental to the situation of women. We also point out the risks associated with taking a subjective stance, which can be involuntarily detrimental to the cause it intends to serve.Second, we draw on our various experiences at conferences. We show that our intention to transform the structures of domination has led us to adapt our own discourses, seeking to convince reluctant audiences by adopting a pragmatic style. We also discuss how conferences have shaped our research choices and interests, while making us aware of our own potential tendency towards universalism and a biased standpoint as Western scholars.     

Respect and relational contracts

Assuming that people care not only about what others do but also on what others think, we study respect in a labor market context where the length of the employment relationship is endogenous. In our three-stage gift-exchange experiment, the employer can express respect by giving the employee costly symbolic rewards after observing his level of effort. We study whether symbolic rewards are used by the employers mainly to praise employees or as a coordination device to build relational contracts by manipulating the balance between labor demand and supply in the market. We find that a high proportion of long-term relationships have been initiated by the assignment of symbolic rewards. However, the assignment of symbolic rewards decreases when it becomes clear that the relationship is durable, suggesting that employers mainly use symbolic rewards as a coordination device to initiate relational contracts. Compared to the balanced market condition, assigning symbolic rewards in initial relationships is less likely when there is excess demand in the market and more likely when there is excess supply, i.e., when the relationship is more valuable. Receiving symbolic rewards increases the employees’ likelihood of accepting to continue the relationship with the same employer. It also motivates them to increase their effort further but only when the market is balanced. Overall, the ability to assign symbolic rewards does not give rise to higher profits because it is associated with lower rents offered to the employees on average, leading to lower effort levels.     

Much ado about nothing: the limitation of liability and the market for 19th century Irish bank stock

Limited liability is widely believed to be a prerequisite for the emergence of an active and liquid securities market because the transactions costs associated with trading ownership of unlimited liability firms are viewed as prohibitive. In this article, we examine the trading of shares in an Irish bank, which limited its liability in 1883. Using this bank’s archives, we assemble a time series of trading data, which we test for structural breaks. Our results suggest that the move to limited liability had a negligible impact upon the trading of this bank’s shares.     

SECURITIZATION: A FINANCING STRATEGY FOR EMERGING MARKETS FIRMS

With emerging markets now in crisis, companies in developing countries are finding it difficult to obtain financing. Securitization, a transaction structure in which the securities sold to investors are backed by a company's receivables, is one of the few vehicles with at least the potential to provide financing at economic rates in the current environment of uncertainty.
Unlike U.S. securitization issues, emerging markets transactions often use a structure known as "future flows" securitization, in which the securities are backed by receivables that are not expected to be generated until after issuance. This article begins by describing how the process of future flows securitization carves out securities with levels of political risk acceptable to foreign capital market investors. Then it traces the history of emerging markets securitization from its origins in Latin America to its more recent uses during the Asian crisis. Securitization helped bring foreign investors back to Latin America after its debt crisis of the early 1980s. And while the Asian crisis has sharply reduced new issuance for all kinds of emerging market financings, the volume of securitization issues appears to have declined less precipitously than other types of transactions geared to foreign investors. Moreover, investment bankers are now hard at work planning new securitization issues for companies in both Latin America and Asia.
In exploring the longer-term effects of securitization on both domestic issuers and their economies, the author suggests that securitization could play a pivotal role in restoring emerging markets companies' access to global financial markets. Indeed, with a few exceptions such as Malaysia, most emerging markets are now responding to the crisis by taking measures to protect investors, such as requiring greater financial transparency and dispelling legal uncertainties that have discouraged securitization in particular and overseas investment more generally.     

Does Globalisation Affect Crime? Theory and Evidence

Globalisation sceptics argue that trade liberalisation has high social costs, including an increase in expropriative behaviour such as civil conflict, coercion of labour and crime. We show that a theoretical relationship between trade and expropriation exists, but the sign differs for developed and developing economies. We verify this empirically using data on crime rates. Specifically, we find that trade liberalisation, as measured by both higher openness and lower import duty rates, tends to increase burglaries and theft in very labour‐abundant countries. For other countries, however, we find that trade liberalisation has either a small negative effect on crime or no effect, depending on the country's capital abundance.     

How Can Internet Comparison Sites Work Optimally for Consumers?

In today's information society, there is such a large amount of available information about any given good or service that consumers are unable to make an informed choice. Internet comparison sites (ICSs) could provide a solution to this problem by comparing markets for consumers and making a comprehensive recommendation. However, currently, they are not fully effective for consumers. Consumers do not trust ICSs because of concerns about commission biases and lack of full market coverage. To be fully effective, ICSs also ought to cover non-price dimensions such as product quality and after-sales service. Changing the economic model from the current two-sided platform to a one-sided platform could solve these problems. In order for this to occur, changes or clarifications to existing EU consumer laws might need to be made.     

When partnerships don't ‘match‐up’: an evaluation of labour–management partnerships in the automotive components and civil aviation industries

Following the agenda for partnership research set out recently in this journal, ‘exemplar’ case studies from the automotive and civil aviation industries are subject to the litmus (process) test of academic pluralists and the acid (outcomes) test of academic radicals. On both tests, the results have been disappointing, especially for trade unions and their members. However, while mutual gains from partnership agreements are not probable in a UK context, they are still possible, as comparative research in the civil aviation sector serves to illustrate.