Who Will Monitor the Monitors? Informal Law Enforcement and Collusion at Champagne

• Main Author: GUHA, Brishti
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2012
• Subjects: Collusion; Institutions; Monitors; Competition; Guilds; Champagne fairs; Medieval Europe; Behavioral Economics
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/1382; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2012.05.017
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Informal monitors can sometimes substitute for formal law enforcement. Monitors hired to minimize cheating, however, are themselves vulnerable to collusion and extortion. I focus on one such informal monitor – the fair authorities at the trade fairs at Champagne – asking why the fairs survived for c...