Parchment, guns, and the problem of governance

The genuine problem of governance is one that pays equal attention to both incentive and knowledge issues in private and public contexts. This work brings together Austrian, Public Choice and theory of the firm insights to address such problem. By taking into account incentives and knowledge, it proposes a framework that accommodates comparisons not just of kind (firm or market), but also of degree (e.g., among different types of internal organization). Moreover, although the suggested framework derives from considerations about private governance, it equally accommodates public and private settings. (89 words.) © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York.