Over the last 20 years, the success of Japanese manufacturing firms has brought renewed attention to the importance of cost reduction on existing products as a source of productivity growth. This paper uses survey data and field interviews from the auto supply industry to explore the...

The U.S. economic crisis of 2008-2009 hit the automotive industry particularly hard; sales fell suddenly by 40% in the third quarter of 2008. The U.S. policy response to this automotive crisis was somewhat misdirected, attempting to solve the wrong problems. The U.S. automakers did not have a...

The literature on agglomeration economies suggests that, in addition to firm-specific attributes, the local geographic context conditions the expected profitability of technology adoption. All rheories of technology diffusion assumc that inter-firm learning is the outcome of contact with prior...

Economists have often argued that "pay for performance" is the optimal compensation scheme. However, use of the simplest form of pay for performance, the piece rate, has been in decline in manufacturing in recent decades. We show both theoretically and empirically that these changes are due to...

By engaging in specific investments a firm may develop a unique competence value for its partner, which makes the partners mutually dependent. This may neutralize any hold-up risk of an opportunistic partner that is tempted to exploit the dependence and appropriate a greater share of the value...

We explore the ways that component suppliers in a traditional US manufacturing region (Cleveland) have responded to their customers' demands for improved quality, cost, and delivery. We find that a surprising number (almost a third) have not responded by attempting systematic improvements in...

Using both survey data and field research, we investigate the effects of employee involvement practices on outcomes for blue-collar workers in the auto supply industry. wages by 3-5%. The causal mechanism linking involvement and wages appears most consistent with efficiency wage theories, and...