Please join me in congratulating the winners of the Mira Wilkins Prize;
- Paolo di Martino, Mark Latham & Michelangelo Vasta, ‘Bankruptcy Laws around Europe (1850-2015): Institutional Change and Institutional Features’, Enterprise & Society 21: 4 (December 2020), 936-990.
The committee, formed by Asli M. Colpan (Kyoto University, Japan), Rory M. Miller (University of Liverpool, UK), and Manuel Llorca-Jaña (Universidad de Valparaíso, Chile) "decided to award the prize to this paper for a number of reasons. The foundation for it is a large database of bankruptcy and insolvency laws which the authors have constructed, covering thirty European countries over 165 years; the data is fully detailed in the appendices to the paper. On this basis the authors have produced a properly comparative paper demonstrating how the legal provisions surrounding insolvency changed markedly over the period, yet differed significantly among countries, for example on who had the right to initiate proceedings, and the extent to which the law encouraged attempts to safeguard the business as a going concern. Legal provisions regarding insolvency were fundamental to the institutional environment within which business operated, yet the subject has largely been neglected. This paper is ambitious, and sheds considerable light on law and practice in Europe over a long period. It will thus be of interest not only to European business historians, but also to legal historians and those examining the construction of European nation-states during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries."
The committee also gave an honorable mention to:
- Emily Buchnea, ‘Bridges and Bonds: The Role of British Merchant Bank Intermediaries in latin American Trade and Finance Networks, 1825-1850’, Enterprise & Society, 21: 2 (2020), 453-493.
- Jessica Ann Levy, ‘Black Power in the Boardroom: Corporate America, the Sullivan Principles, and Anti-Apartheid’, Enterprise & Society 21: 1 (2020), 170-209.
To learn more about the Mira Wilkins Prize please click here.