The theory of the firm suggests that firms can respond to poor contract enforcement by vertically integrating their production process. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether firms' integration opportunities affect the way institutions determine international trade patterns. We find...

The theory of the firm suggests that firms can respond to poor contract enforcement by vertically integrating their production process. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether firms’ integration opportunities affect the way contract enforcement institutions determine international...

The multinational firm (MNF) is introduced as the intersection between trade theory and the theory of the firm. I show that economies of scale associated with various knowledge inputs have made it possible for firms to grow large through internationalization and, once large, staying competitive...

The make-or-buy decision is analyzed in a simple framework combining contractual incompleteness with the existence of imperfect but contractible performance measures. Contractual incompleteness gives rise to two regimes, identified with make and buy. The performance measure on which...

The make-or-buy decision is analyzed in a three-layer principal-management-agent model. There is a cost-saving/quality tradeoff in effort provision. The principal chooses between employing an in-house management and contracting with an independent management; the cost-saving incentives facing...

Swedish Manufacturing Industry is said to be technologically and commercially in good shape. While Swedish wage levels were higher than in all industrial countries in the mid-70s, wages - expressed in international currencies - have now dropped to a mid-position, and real rates of return are...

This paper introduces an experimental economy with boundedly rational agents that compete with local, and largely incommunicable industrial knowledge, in an international market environment with more or less unbounded, commercial opportunities. Predictability of outcomes at the micro level is...

Over the course of the last 10 or 15 years there appears to be taking place a fundamental shift in the "industrial paradigm" governing the nature of competition in advanced industrial markets. Among the characteristics of this shift are a transition from mass production to flexible manufacturing...

Results from empirical studies of firm behavior are synthesized into, a theory of the firm as a competent team. I demonstrate the existence of a tacit organizational competence exercising a leverage on the productivities of all other factors through selecting and allocating competent people,...

The paper examines the determinants of the division of labor within firms. It provides an explanation of the pervasive observed changes in work organization away from the traditional functional departments and toward multi-tasking and job rotation. Whereas the existing literature on the division...