Monti on the Italian Business Firm in the Late 19th Century

Annamaria Monti, Bocconi University Department of Law, has posted Form, Size, 'Governance'. Remarks on Italian Late 19th-Century Companies, a paper presented at the workshop The Small, Medium-Sized and Large Company in Law and Economic Practice (Middle Ages-Nineteenth Century), Brussels, May 2015.  Here is the abstract:    

The late 19th century Italian experience concerning form, size and governance of companies and partnerships limited by shares represents a good case study in the contemporary European context, especially for the coexistence of small and big companies, each with a specific role and different needs.

Moreover, neither the few big businesses nor the many smaller companies chose the classical corporation form, namely a company limited by shares, which in Italy, as in France, was called società anonima.

At least at the beginning of their business activities, they mainly preferred the juridical form of the so called accomandita per azioni, i.e. partnerships limited by shares, where in addition to one or more general partners who didn’t enjoy limited liability, there were one or more limited partners, i.e. partners with limited liability. And this was for different reasons which I am going to discuss in the paper.