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My dissertation uses historical records and a context-specific mechanism-design model to investigate the institutional and contractual arrangements that enhanced mobilization of capital and risk-sharing in late-medieval Venice.This disssertation was written at the Department of Economics at the European University Institute under the supervision of Professors Avner Greif and Ramon Marimon with support from the Social Science History Institute at Stanford University. I also wish to thank Andrea Drago, Gavin Wright, Jaime Reis, and Leandro Prados de la Escosura for their help in various ways. The funding of long-distance risky trade in late medieval Venice could potentially promote economic prosperity, but it required that merchants were able to commit ex-ante not to breach their financial contracts ex-post. Institutions for contract enforcement were thus required to mitigate this commitment problem and enable …