Paying transaction costs

This paper tries to understand the adoption of different organisational forms by trade intermediaries. It does that by exploring their options in a coherent economic framework emphasizing the importance of paying transaction costs. It is based both on my knowledge of 18th century French traders and some insights from more contemporaneous situations. In the first part, the paper analyses the static activity of traders and the tools at their disposal. In the second part, it studies the alternative they had to dynamically improve their situation