Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T17:20:19.227Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Limited Partnership in New York, 1822–1858: Partnerships Without Kinship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2009

Eric Hilt  and
Katharine O'Banion
Eric Hilt*
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA 02481; and Faculty Research Fellow, NBER. E-mail: [email protected].
Katharine O'Banion*
Affiliation:
Katharine O'Banion is J.D. Candidate, Yale Law School, P.O. Box 208215, New Haven, CT 06520–8215. E-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In 1822 New York became the first of many common law states to authorize the formation of limited partnerships. Little is known about the effects of these statutes. This article analyzes the use of the limited partnership in nineteenth-century New York City. We find that the form was adopted by a surprising number of firms, and that limited partnerships had more capital, failed at lower rates, and had fewer members with kinship ties, compared to ordinary partnerships. The results suggest that the introduction of the limited partnership facilitated investments that would not have occurred in the absence of the form.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 69 , Issue 3 , September 2009 , pp. 615 - 645
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abramitzky, Ran, Frank, Zephyr, and Mahajan, Aprajit. “Inside the Black Box: Partnerships in Rio de Janeiro, 18701891.” Working Paper, Stanford University, 2007.Google Scholar
Albion, Robert G.The Rise of New York Port. New York: Scribner's Sons, 1939.Google Scholar
Bates, Clement. The Law of Limited Partnership. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1886.Google Scholar
Beckert, Sven. The Monied Metropolis: New York City and the Consolidation of the American Bourgeoisie, 18501896. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Begbie, Matthew. Partnership “en Commandite,” or Partnership with Limited Liabilities. London: Effingham Wilson, 1848.Google Scholar
Bodenhorn, Howard. “Partnership and Hold-Up in Early America.” NBER Working Paper No. w8814, Cambridge, MA, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Ronald L.The Law School Papers of Benjamin F. Butler: New York University School of Law in the 1830s. New York: Greenwood Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Cadman, John W.The Corporation in New Jersey. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1949.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chandler, Alfred. The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977.Google Scholar
Cook, Charles M.The American Codification Movement: A Study of Antebellum Legal Reform. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Darling, William A.List of Persons, Copartnerships, and Corporations Who Were Taxed on Seventeen Thousand Five Hundred Dollars, and Upwards, in the City of New York. New York: John F. Whitney, 1851.Google Scholar
Doggett's New York City Directory, 1845–1853. New York: John Doggett Jr.Google Scholar
Doggett's New York City Partnership Directory, 1845–1853. New York, John Doggett Jr.Google Scholar
Eden, Frederick. On the Policy and Expediency of Granting Insurance Charters. London: Burton, 1806.Google Scholar
Ffookes, Woodforde. Law of Partnership an Obstacle to Social Progress. London: W. G. Benning & Co., 1854.Google Scholar
Freedeman, Charles E.Joint-Stock Enterprise in France, 18071867. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1979.Google Scholar
Friedman, Lawrence M.The History of American Law. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985.Google Scholar
Gilmore, Eugene A.Handbook on the Law of Partnership Including Limited Partnerships. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Co., 1911.Google Scholar
Gmez-Galvarriato, Aurora, and Musacchio, Aldo. “Larger Menus and Entrepreneurial Appetite: An Empirical Investigation of Organizational Choice in Mexico, 18861910.” Working Paper, Harvard Business School, 2008.Google Scholar
Guinnane, Timothy, Ron, Harris, Naomi, Lamoreaux, and Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent. “Putting the Corporation in its Place.” Enterprise and Society 8, no. 3 (2007): 687–687.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Handlin, Oscar, and Handlin, Mary Flug. CommonwealthA Study of the Role of Government in the American Economy: Massachusetts, 17741861. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1969.Google Scholar
Hansmann, Henry, Reinier, Kraakman, and Squire, Richard. “Law and the Rise of the Firm.” Harvard Law Review 119, no. 5 (2006): 1335–1335.Google Scholar
Hilt, Eric. “Incentives in Corporations: Evidence from the American Whaling Industry.” Journal of Law and Economics 49, no. 1 (2006): 197–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hilt, Eric. “When Did Ownership Separate from Control? Corporate Governance in the Early Nineteenth Century.” This Journal 68, no. 3 (2008): 645–645.Google Scholar
Horwitz, Morton J.The Transformation of American Law: 17901860. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977.Google Scholar
Howard, Stanley E.“The Limited Partnership in New Jersey.” Journal of Business of the University of Chicago 7, no. 4 (1934): 296–296.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hurst, James Willard. Law and the Conditions of Freedom in the Nineteenth-Century United States. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1956.Google Scholar
Journal of the Assembly of the State of New York at Their Forty-Fifth Session, Begun and Held at the Capitol, in the City of Albany, the First Day of January, 1822. Albany: Cantine & Leake, 1822.Google Scholar
Kent, James. Commentaries on American Law. New York: O. Halsted, 1826.Google Scholar
Kessler, Amalia D.“Limited Liability in Context: Lessons from the French Origins of the American Limited Partnership.” Journal of Legal Studies 32, no. 2 (2003): 511–511.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lamoreaux, Naomi R. “The Partnership Form of Organization: Its Popularity in Early-Nineteenth-Century Boston.” In Entrepreneurs: The Boston Business Community, 17501850, edited by Wright, Conrad E. and Viens, Katheryn P., 269–95. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1997.Google Scholar
Lamoreaux, Naomi R., and Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent. “Legal Regime and Business's Organizational Choice: A Comparison of France and the United States During the Era of Industrialization.” American Law and Economics Review 7, no. 1 (2005): 28–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levi, Leone. “Appendix.” In First Report: Commissioners Appointed to Inquire … [On] Mercantile Laws. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1854.Google Scholar
Limited Partnership Registrations, 18221858. Division of Old Records, New York County Clerk's Office. New York, NY.Google Scholar
Nelson, William E.Americanization of the Common Law: The Impact of Legal Change on Massachusetts Society, 17601830. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975.Google Scholar
New York. Minutes of the Common Council of the City of New York, 17841831. Published by the City of New York, 1917.Google Scholar
North, Douglass C, John, Joseph Wallis, and Weingast, Barry R.. “A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History.” NBER Working Paper No. 12795, Cambridge, MA, 2006.Google Scholar
Porter, Glenn, and Livesay, Harold C.. Merchants and Manufacturers: Studies in the Changing Structure of Nineteenth-Century Marketing. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1971.Google Scholar
Porter, Kenneth W.The Jacksons and the Lees: Two Generations of Massachusetts Merchants, 17651844. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1937.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Potter, Paraclete. Every Man His Own Lawyer, or, The Clerk and Magistrate's Assistant, Adapted to the Revised Statutes and Greatly Enlarged. Poughkeepsie, NY: Conner & Cooke, 1834.Google Scholar
R. G. Dun & Co. ledgers, New York City. Collection Baker Library, Harvard University. Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Rode's New York & Brooklyn Partnership Directory, 1853. New York: Charles R. Rode.Google Scholar
Rodman, John. The Commercial Code of France. New York: C. Wiley, 1814.Google Scholar
Saville, John. “Sleeping Partnership and Limited Liability, 18501856.” Economic History Review 8, no. 3 (1956): 418–418.Google Scholar
Scoville, Joseph A.The Old Merchants of New York City. By Walter Barrett [pseudonym]. New York: Carleton, 1863.Google Scholar
Seavoy, Ronald E.The Origins of the American Business Corporation, 17841855. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Spencer, John C.Notes on the Revised Statutes of the State of New York. Albany, NY: Webster and Skinners, 1830.Google Scholar
Troubat, Francis J.The Law of Commandatary and Limited Partnerships in the United States. Philadelphia: James Kay, Jun, & Brother, 1853.Google Scholar
Wallis, John Joseph. “Market-Augmenting Government? States and Corporations in Nineteenth-Century America.” In Market-Augmenting Government: The Institutional Foundations for Prosperity, edited by Azfar, Omar and Cadwell, Charles A., 223–65. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Warren, Edward H.Corporate Advantages Without Incorporation. New York: Baker, Voorhis & Co., 1929.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. The History of Commercial Partnerships in the Middle Ages. Trans. Lutz Kaelber. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.Google Scholar
Wilson's Business Directory of New York City, 1849–1853. New York: John F. Trow.Google Scholar