In this paper we develop measures of economic capacity output and economic capacity utilization for firms producing multiple outputs and having one or .ore quasi-fixed inputs. Although we produce an impossibility theorem showing that based only on the assumption of cost minimization, the concept...

The recent fall of labor's share of GDP in numerous countries is well-documented, but its causes are poorly understood. We sketch a “superstar firm” model where industries are increasingly characterized by “winner take most” competition, leading a small number of highly profitable (and...

The fall of labor's share of GDP in the United States and many other countries in recent decades is well documented but its causes remain uncertain. Existing empirical assessments of trends in labor's share typically have relied on industry or macro data, obscuring heterogeneity among firms. In...

We examine conditions under which a low cost vertically integrated manufacturer has an incentive to export an intermediate product to its higher cost (vertically integrated) rival rather than to vertically foreclose, fully cutting off supplies. The nature of supply conditions in the importing...

The heavy-tailed distribution of firm sizes first discovered by Zipf (1949) is one of the best established empirical facts in economics. We show that it has strong implications for asset pricing. Due to the concentration of the market portfolio when the distribution of the capitalization of...

Contractual theories of vertical integration derive firm boundaries as an efficient response to market transaction costs. These theories predict a relationship between underlying features of transactions and observed integration decisions. There has been some progress in testing these...

This paper examines the rationale for vertical restraints. It shows that there are important circumstances under which these restrictions have significant anti-competitive effects. The paper focuses on the consequences of exclusive territorial arrangements among the retailers of two products...

We propose an economic model of business groups that allows for the cooperative behavior of groups of firms, where the number and size of each group is determined endogenously. In this framework, more than one configuration of groups can arise in equilibrium: several different types of business...