Banking on the King: The Evolution of the Royal Revenue Farms in Old Regime France
研究了17世纪法国投石党运动后，皇家包税合同从小型竞争拍卖演变为大型卡特尔（总包税公司）的过程，发现卡特尔化降低了王室成本，并揭示了在缺乏代议制机构时组织如何保护产权。
The writing and allocation of French tax farm contracts changed dramatically after the Fronde (1648–1653): they were gradually transformed from small, competitively auctioned, units into a large cartel known as the Company of General Farms. Surprisingly, the crown's revenues increased. I present a transaction cost argument to explain the behavior of tax farm lease prices as tax farming changed during the seventeenth century. Cartelization of tax farms lowered costs faced by the crown. The tax farm system's evolution offers insights into how organizations evolve to protect their property rights in the absence of well functioning representative institutions.