This paper investigates the determinants of vertical integration. We first derive a number of predictions regarding the relationship between technology intensity and vertical integration from a simple incomplete contracts model. Then, we investigate these predictions using plant-level data for...

This paper documents the extent and characteristics of plants and firms in the US that are outside the manufacturing sector according to official government statistics but nonetheless are heavily involved in activities related to the production of manufactured goods. Using new data on...

We develop a model in which multinational investors decide about the modes of organization, the locations of production, and the markets to be served. Foreign investments are driven by market-seeking and cost-reducing motives. We further assume that investors face costs of control that vary...

This paper investigates a hitherto unexplored rationale for firms to enter into joint ventures. We model risky projects with autocorrelated productivity shocks as creating an option value of investing over time so that later investments benefit from the information revealed by the realization of...

We study the problem of an inventor who brings to the market an innovation that can be legally copied. Imitators may 'enter' the market by copying the innovation at a cost or by buying from the inventor the knowledge necessary to reproduce and use the invention. The possibility of contracting...

A buyer seeks to procure a good characterized by its price and its quality from suppliers who have private information about their cost structure (fixed cost + marginal cost of providing quality). We solve for the optimal buying mechanism, i.e. the procedure that maximizes the buyer’s expected...

Many people in the European Union fear that Eastern enlargement will lead to major job losses. More recently, these fears about job losses have extended to high skill labour and IT jobs. Using new firm-level data, this Paper examines whether these fears are justified for Austria and Germany -...

This paper investigates how the mode of entry into a foreign market can be influenced by the intensity of R&D in an industry and the protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) in a recipient country. It then analyzes the link between the IPR regime and policies that place limits on the...

This paper is an empirical investigation of unemployment rate series in 17 countries. The timing and size of shifts in the mean rate of unemployment are estimated. The size of the shifts and the remaining persistence in the unemployment rate series are then related to institutional differences...

This Paper studies scoring auctions, a procedure commonly used to buy differentiated products: suppliers submit offers on all dimensions of the good (price, level of non monetary attributes), and these are evaluated using a scoring rule. We provide a systematic analysis of equilibrium behaviour...