A STUDY OF REFINEMENTS IN THE INCIDENTS OF BUSINESS OWNERSHIP FROM THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY*

Abstract

s of Doctoral Dissertations 59 could not freely create debtor-creditor relationships, for the presentday coincept of private business borrowing was not in existence; could not, under most circumstances, limit the liability connected with private business ownership; could not depend upon sufficient amounts of capital being available whenever and wherever needed; and could not avail themselves of a form of business organization similar to the modern corporation. Consequently, the opportunities for achieving variety in the apportionment of risk, income, and control were extremely limited. It is obvious, then, that many changes in business practice must have occurred between the early Middle Ages and the twentieth century, and that there must have been considerable thought of an economic nature concerning those changes. The procedure followed in this study has been to seek out major changes in the creation of the debtor-creditor relationship, in the concept of limited liability, in the conditions of capital markets, and in the forms of business organization; then to show how such changes improved or refined the previous methods of apportioning risk, income, and control; and finally, to present the dominant economic thought of the period regarding these changes. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.111 on Tue, 09 Aug 2016 05:40:00 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms