An Agency Costs Theory of Trust Law

Law, Agency Costs and Project Finance

We investigate Project Finance as a private response to ine¢ ciencies created by weak legal protection of outside investors. In the context of large investment projects, Project Finance o¤ers a contractual and organizational substitute for investor protection laws by making cash ‡ows veri…able, thereby enhancing debt capacity. Project Finance makes cash ‡ows veri…able through: (i) contractual a...

Property Rights Theory, Transaction Costs Theory, and Agency Theory: An Organizational Economics Approach to Strategic Management

Property rights theory has common antecedents with contractual theories of the firm such as transaction costs and agency theories, and is yet distinct from these theories. We illustrate fundamental theoretical principles derived from these three theories by analyzing the business case of oil field unitization. Theoretical principles and application of theory to oil field unitization are each su...

The Business of Startup Law: Alternative Fee Arrangements and Agency Costs in Entrepreneurial Law

Trust and Political Agency

Trust is both a human passion and a modality of human action: a more or less consciously chosen policy for handling the freedom of other human agents or agencies. As a passion, a sentiment, it can be evanescent or durable. But as a modality of action it is essentially concerned with coping with uncertainty over time (Luhmann 1979: 30; Luhmann, this volume). A human passion, let us agree with Da...

An Agency Theory of Patent Law: Linking Innovators and Invention Users

S | 48 An Agency Theory of Patent Law: Linking Innovators and Invention Users Richard Gruner Professor, John Marshall Law School Chicago, IL This article presents a reinterpretation of patent laws as components of agency relationships linking innovators and innovation users. In these relationships, patent rights substitute for privately negotiated contract terms tying the interests of persons w...