Contractual Networks, Inter-Firm Cooperation and Economic Growth

Contractual networks - loose associations of firms - are fundamental but little-understood features of the modern economic landscape. Observed across a wide range of industries and in many different settings, these networks present important questions for the theory of the firm and for the analysis of modern industrial organization. This volume brings together cutting edge research on contractual networks across a range of industries, geographic regions, and legal environments - research that demonstrates the extraordinary flexibility and complexity of these forms of industrial organization and illuminates many aspects of their structure and function. Highly recommended. -- - Geoffrey Miller, New York University, US In a rapidly changing context of technological and business innovation, characterized in particular by networks that are geared for coordination and cooperation, multiparty contractual consortia, and linked transactions, is the law fit for purpose? How well does contract law map on to, and serve, markets that are now organized in networked ways? For anyone wishing to engage with these important questions, the essays in this collection, contributed by some of the leading figures in European private law, are essential reading. -- Roger Brownsword, Kings College London, UK

Edited by Fabrizio Cafaggi, Professor, Scuola Nazionale dell'Amministrazione, Rome, and Director, Center for Judicial Cooperation, EUI, Florence, Italy

Contents: 1. Introduction Fabrizio Cafaggi PART I: CONTRACTUAL NETWORKS: THE CHALLENGES TO CONTRACT THEORY 2. Cooperation, Long-term Relationships and Open-endedness in Contractual Networks Fernando Gmez 3. Do Inter-firm Networks Make Access to Finance Easier? Issues and Empirical Evidence Domenico Scalera and Alberto Zazzaro 4. Contractual Networks and Contract Theory: A Research Agenda for European Contract Law Fabrizio Cafaggi PART II: A COMPARATIVE FRAMEWORK 5. Contractual Networks in German Private Law Stefan Grundmann 6. Linked Contracts Under French Law Carole Aubert de Vincelles 7. Contract Networks, Freedom of Contract and the Restructuring of Privity of Contract Simon Whittaker PART III: TOWARD A EUROPEAN SYSTEM OF DECENTRALIZED RULES? 8. Interfirm Networks Across Europe: A Private International Law Perspective Fabrizio Cafaggi and Sandrine Clavel Index