You Have an Appointment With the Devil: Debt Collection Agencies and the Processing of Business Disputes
Posted: 23 Oct 2007 Last revised: 30 Apr 2015
Date Written: October 23, 2007
Abstract
This article describes the use of debt collection agencies that employ shaming techniques as a way to enforce contractual obligations. It attempts to explain the incentives that business disputants have for choosing non-institutionalized mechanisms to channel their conflicts, in spite of their tension with the formal legal system. This article focuses on business disputes and disputants in Venezuela, a developing economy, and belongs to a larger research agenda geared to understand what social conditions shape individual preferences for different dispute processing systems.
Keywords: debt collection, dispute resolution, social networks, enforcement, private ordering
JEL Classification: K42
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation