Why Are Modern Bureaucracies Special? State Support to Private Firms in Early Eighteenth-Century France

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4888077
AutoresJean Beuve (0000-0002-3551-3725, Centre d'Économie de la Sorbonne), Eric Brousseau (Université Paris Dauphine-PSL), Jérôme Sgard (0000-0002-7168-3684, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)
Año2017
Volumen77
Número4
Páginas1144-1176
Fecha de publicación2017-12-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Journal of Economic History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0022-0507 • E-ISSN: 1471-6372
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0022050717001061
OpenAlexW2620081831
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas11
Referencias citadas35

TheBureau du Commerceallocated rights and rents to private entrepreneurs via a mix of hierarchical division of labor and peer-based collegial deliberation. This set-up reflected an attempt to maximize information and expertise, but also allowed for the recognition of private rights and social interests. The final decisions of theBureau(for or against each demand), and the qualitative arguments brought forward during the procedure, are robust predictors of eventual decisions. We see this result as an indication that impersonal, rational and informed decision-making could be obtained even within a patrimonialist, rent-seeking State

Bureaucracy · Business · Deliberation · Division of labour · Economic rent · Economics · Law and economics · Market economy · Microeconomics · Political science · Private information retrieval · Private rights · Public economics · Rent-seeking · Set (abstract data type) · State (computer science) · Computer Science · European Political History Analysis · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Law · Public Administration