Private Governance : Creating Order in Economic and Social Life
Edward Peter Stringham (Author)
From the world’s first stock markets in the seventeenth century, to private policing in the early days of San Francisco, to the millions of credit card transactions and the complex financial markets governed by private rules today, this book makes the case that private rules and regulations are more common, effective, and promising than most of us believe. Analytical narratives weave together history and economics to show readers how private governance works. The main hypotheses are as follows. Potential problems such as fraud are pervasive, but so are private solutions. Private parties have incentives to devise mechanisms for eliminating unwanted behavior, and the efficacy of nonviolent mechanisms is particularly underappreciated. The term “private governance” describes the various forms of private enforcement, self-governance, self-regulation, and informal mechanisms that private individuals, companies, and clubs, as opposed to government, use to create order, facilitate exchange, and protect property rights. It works behind the scenes, where few people notice it, but private governance helps make the modern economy possible
Book, 2015-08-01
Oxford University Press, New York, 2015-08-01