Abstract 

Reliance on agency-theoretic reasoning has led to substantial theoretical and empirical advances in company law scholarship, but the narrow focus on board-level actors and phenomena has disconnected the analysis of the company from the reality of the economic organization it is meant to enable and support. We follow Oliver Williamson’s call for a ‘law, economics, and organization’ approach, and build on Elinor Ostrom’s ‘institutional analysis and development’ framework to propose a narrative model of the company in terms of nested levels of governance. We argue that our model works as a positive description of the law as it is, and puts us in a stronger position to evaluate the likely consequences of certain normative interventions, which we illustrate with some observations about ongoing debates in corporate governance.

Paper can be downloaded here.

Practicalities

This event will be a hybrid event. The seminar will take place in Roeterseiland campus (REC) building A, room number A3.01 (Research Seminar Room), and will also be streamed online via Zoom.  

About the speaker 

Eva Micheler is a professor at the LSE Law School and a co-investigator at the LSE Systemic Risk Centre. She writes on corporate law and on the law of securities and digital assets. Her most recent book is entitled ‘Company Law – A Real Entity Theory’.

About ACLE

The Amsterdam Center for Law and Economics (ACLE) is a joint initiative of the Faculty of Economics and Business and the Faculty of Law at the University of Amsterdam. The objective of the ACLE is to promote high-quality interdisciplinary research at the intersection between law and economics.