What determines vertical scope? Transactions cost economics (TCE) has been the dominant paradigm for understanding "make" vs. "buy" choices. However, the traditional focus on empirically validating or refuting TCE has taken attention away from other possible drivers of scope, and it has rarely...

This paper reconsiders the drivers and implications of vertical scope, in particular by fleshing out currently loose theorizing about capability-driven integration. As the transaction-cost based view cannot fully explain vertical channel choices in our large-scale US Mortgage Banking Database...