Departing from the seminal question that Coase raised in his 1937 work, this article discusses and assesses incomplete contracts theories' analyses of the firm's boundaries - notably transaction cost theory and the modern theory of property rights - by investigating the case of the vertical...

In the last twenty years, through a growing awareness of contractual incompleteness, the concept of authority has regained primacy in the analysis of the employment relationship. This article pursues two goals. First, we assess the famous controversy between Coase and Alchian and Demsetz via an...

Depuis une vingtaine d'années, le thème de l'autorité dans la relation d'emploi a fait l'objet d'un regain d'intérêt parmi les économistes, en raison notamment dela prise en compte de l'incomplétude des contrats. Dans cet article, notre objectif est double. Il s'agit tout d'abord de...

In this paper, we characterize what we call the "V-network form," a vertical organization distinct from a horizontal network of firms, in which a "hub-firm" organizes and coordinates regular essential operations such as provision, production and distribution between legally independent entities....

[eng] Contract, authority and trust : can the subcontracting relationship be compared with the employment relationship ?. . The aim of the article is to compare the subcontracting relationship with the employer/ employee relationship through the study of the coordination mechanisms wich...

This paper assesses how two traditions, namely the economics of contracts and the economics of conventions, incorporate the legal framework of the labor relation in their analysis of the employment relationship. A comparison of these views not only offers different conceptions of the employment...

Given the distinction between power and authority, our aim in this paper is to set forth a framework for the analysis of the authority relation and the associated commanding within the firm based on the economics of convention. We begin by building a general model of the ?authority convention,?...

For about twenty years, the notion of authority has been put forward again into the analysis of employment relationship, especially concerning contracts incompleteness. This article has two purposes. First, it aims at giving an assessment of the famous controversy between Coase and...

Going back to the initial question raised by Coase in his 1937 article, we discuss in this paper the firm boundary problem by analyzing a specific organizational form, the network-firm. We first focus on the functioning of the network-firm, taking a specific interest in the incentive and...