Introduction: NAOMI LAMOREAUX and JOHN WALLIS (Friday, 1:00-1:30 PM)

Session 1 (Friday, 1:30-3:00 PM)

DAN BOGART
Political Connections, Governance, and Property Rights in Britain’s Early Corporations: The Case of the East India Company

QIAN LU and JOHN WALLIS
Banks, Politics, and Political Parties: From Partisan Banking to Open Access in Early Massachusetts

Coffee break (Friday, 3:00-3:30 PM)

Session II (Friday, 3:30-5:00 PM)

ERIC HILT
General Incorporation and the Shift toward Open Access in the Nineteenth-Century United States

NICHOLAS BLOOM, RAFFAELLA SADUN, and JOHN VAN REENEN
The Organization of Firms Across Countries

Breakfast (Saturday, 8:00 AM)

Session III (Saturday, 8:30-10:00 AM)

RUTH H. BLOCH and NAOMI R. LAMOREAUX
Legal Constraints on the Development of Voluntary Organizations in the United States, 1780-1900

WALTER W. POWELL and VICTORIA JOHNSON
Poisedness and Organizational Emergence: From Civic Order to Professional Philanthropy in 19th Century New York City

Coffee break (Saturday, 10:00-10:30 AM)

Session IV (Saturday, 10:30 AM-12:00 Noon)

RICHARD BROOKS and TIMOTHY GUINNANE
The Right to Associate and the Rights of Associations: Civil-Society Organizations in Prussia, 1794-1908

MARGARET LEVI
The Fragility of Access

Lunch (Saturday, 12:00-1:00 PM)

Session V (Saturday, 1:00-1:45 PM)

BARRY R. WEINGAST
Escape from the Violence Trap: The Rise of the Commercial Towns on the Doorstep from the Feudal Natural State Equilibrium

Wrap Up (Saturday, 2:30-3:00PM)