Prologue -- Governance and prosperity -- Entrepreneurship and economic development -- Organizations and uncertainty : the management of perceptions : from medieval Italy to Silicon Valley -- Entrepreneurship and the state -- Valuation and authority in failing firms : the role of reorganization in US and European bankruptcy law -- Performance pay and uncertainty in entrepreneurial and bureaucratic firms -- Executive pay and tenure : founding fathers, mercenaries and revolutionaries -- Decision agents in corporate and political democracies : Venice, Florence and the Low Countries -- Democracy and dictatorship : the politics of innovation -- Waning and emerging empires.