Privatization in India is mostly limited to the diffuse sale of minority stakes in firms. Since control rights have not been transferred to private owners it is widely contended that the process has had little impact on firm behavior. We find however that even the sale of minority stakes has a...

The research tests Oliver Williamson’s proposition that transaction cost economics can explain the limits of firm size. Williamson suggests that diseconomies of scale are manifested through four interrelated factors: atmospheric consequences due to specialisation, bureaucratic insularity,...

Open source software development has organizational characteristics that are out of the ordinary (e.g., flatter hierarchy, self-organization, self-regulation, and no ownership structure). The study suggests that this organization of work can be explained by combining the recently developed...

A number of private colleges and universities have chosen not to compete for students by offering merit-based financial aid. In addition, until 1990 many of these schools jointly calculated a student's financial need. I theoretically and empirically analyze the effects of different financial aid...

We develop a model to study the deployment of shared automated teller machines (ATMs) by banks when an interchange system compensates them for processing foreign withdrawals. The interchange fee is chosen collectively by banks and it is paid by the withdrawer's bank to the ATM-owning bank. We...

This report summarises the findings of a study on the growth factors and growth prospects of the business services (BS)industry, applying an internationally comparative perspective. The report untangles factors behind the extraordinary growth of the BS industry during last decade,comparing it...

The research tests Oliver Williamson’s proposition that transaction cost economics can explain the limits of firm size. Williamson suggests that diseconomies of scale are manifested through four interrelated factors: atmospheric consequences due to specialisation, bureaucratic insularity,...

Managerial diseconomies of scale are often discussed but seldom studied. The purpose of the current research is to open up avenues of inquiry into this potentially important topic. The research tests whether diseconomies of scale influence corporate performance. It uses Coasian transaction cost...

This working paper tests Oliver Williamson’s proposition that transaction cost economics can explain the limits of firm size. A review of the relevant literature corroborates Williamson’s theoretical framework and five hypotheses are formulated: (1) Bureaucratic failure, in the form of...

By a well-known argument, securities holders do not directly benefit from risk-reducing corporate diversification when they can replicate this difersification on their own. Some have argued that corporate diversification may be of value, or can otherwise be explained by, the agency relationship...