Download This PaperBusiness Trusts
Research Handbook on Partnerships, LLCs and Alternative Forms of Business Organizations (Robert W. Hillman and Mark J. Loewenstein, eds., Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015)
13 Pages Posted: 24 Dec 2014 Last revised: 6 Jun 2017
Date Written: September 1, 2014
Abstract
The business trust arguably is the most prominent and yet enigmatic organizational form used today. The problem is that no one knows exactly how prevalent business trusts are, much less why they are the preferred vehicle for a broad and diverse range of transactions. This chapter sheds some light on the business trust by examining its early history at common law, its subsequent mutation into modern statutory and contractarian forms, as well as some of its most common functions. The more closely we scrutinize the business trust, the more apparent it becomes that the pertinent question about business trusts is not why they exist, but rather why they are not used to an even greater extent than what we suspect.
Keywords: Alternative Entities, Business Trusts, Statutory Business Trusts
JEL Classification: K22, L20
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation