As a ruler he issued reforms in the laws of each of the two Danubian Principalities, ensuring a more adequate taxation and a series of measures amounting to the emancipation of serfs and a more humane treatment of slaves.

His reigns were distinguished by numerous tentative reforms in the fiscal and administrative systems,[1] partly influenced by those of the Habsburg monarchy during their presence in Oltenia; initiated in Wallachia, they were to be applied consistently in Moldavia as well.

Faced with the exodus of serfs to neighbouring Transylvania, Mavrocordatos allowed them freedom of movement from one boyar estate to another, in exchange for a 10 löwenthaler fee (the effective abolition of serfdom: 1746 in Wallachia, 1749 in Moldavia).

[3] On these reforms as experienced in Moldavia, Neculce expressed his view that "were he not to have this heavy retinue of his father's, with all those insatiable people, and were he not prone on removing his cousin Grigore-Voivode from Wallachia, there would not have been such plunder in the country".

[5] In 1761, due to the reforms' effects, the Ban of Oltenia moved his seat from Craiova to Bucharest, leaving the region to be ruled by a kaymakam.