Ethnic Enterprise Governance

This working paper is an examination of the important aspects of voluntary governance structures and community associations. It focuses on the emergence and function of the Liverpool Chinatown Business Association (LCBA), and looks at how the LCBA resembles a voluntary club, and how this in turn might become an interest group. Critically, the Chairman of the LCBA is a businessman, and might be seen as a "city manager" whose encompassing interest in the health of Chinatown gives him an incentive to provide positive externalities for the entire community. Alternatively, the lobbying for central funds could be portrayed as rent seeking, where the Chinese community is merely an efficient special interest group. Afterwards, this paper provides theoretical insights that might be applied to entrepreneurial governance structures, analyzed through the lens of ethnic entrepreneurship.