This paper extends the principal-agent model to determine the size of the firm as measured by the number of agent hired. Hiring more agents results in benefits and costs to the principal. The benefits are gains from specialization: higher productivity can be achieved if, as the number of agents...

This paper studies the probability of survival of the manufacturing plants that start producing in Chile in the period 1979-1999 using a proportional hazards model. Opposing previous empirical international evidence, the survival diminishes with age, initial size, and with the rate of growth of...

Abstract Applying a Stochastic Production Frontier to sector-level data within manufacturing sector in India, this paper examines Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth during 1979-80 to 1997-98. The analysis focuses on the trend of technical progress (TP) and Technical Efficiency Change (TEC)....

Through altering competitive conditions, globalisation can have a significant impact on productivity of the domestic economy. Foreign competition can stimulate the productivity improvements by domestic firms or it can lead to the elimination of inefficient producers. Alternatively, the threat or...

Abstract Applying a Stochastic Production Frontier to sector-level data within manufacturing sector in India, this paper examines Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth during 1979-80 to 1997-98. The analysis focuses on the trend of technical progress (TP) and Technical Efficiency Change (TEC)....

The access pricing problem emerges when a vertically integrated firm (the incumbent) provides an essential service in the upstream market, to an entrant. Both firms produce a final service and compete in the downstream market. The standard treatment of this problem has been to add the access...

Consider the case of a firm with private valuation information bargaining with a supplier over the price and quantity of a good. If the firm and the supplier bargain directly, the bargaining outcome may not yield a first-best outcome due to the presence of information rents. The question we...

This paper derives firm boundaries as the outcome of an equilibrium coordination mechanism. The analysis is premised on the notion that efficient production and distribution are achieved through a mechanism that coordinates three basic activities: i) input acquisition, ii) production, iii)...

Most existing theories of the firms define a firm as a collection of physical assets, and hence can not explain the firm from a human-asset perspective, which is of particular importance for understanding human-capital intensive firms. To fill in the gap, this paper proposes an alternative...

This paper provides a framework that aims at distinguishing the technological economies of vertical integration from the vertical economies resulting from market imperfections. To illustrate our analyze, we use consistent panel data econometric methods to estimate cost functions on a sample of...