This paper shows how idiosyncratic resources can be the basis of sustained profitability and persistent heterogeneity under competitive conditions: Generic inputs purchased in the market become idiosyncratic resources by investments in customization. Analytically, we show how heterogeneous firms...

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...

This paper suggests that an unrecognized determinant of global expansion is the structure of the value chain, which is both country- and sector-specific. Value chain structure evolves in a path-dependent, country-specific way. Differences in vertical structures between countries predict the...

This article considers how ideas from evolutionary theory in general, and Sidney Winter in particular, can be fruitfully combined with ideas from Herbert Simon and the Carnegie tradition on decomposability and cognitive limits. Rather than focusing on any one individual issue, this article...

In this paper, we consider how a better understanding of entrepreneurial activities can help explain how firm and industry boundaries change over time and how a more comprehensive understanding of boundary setting can explain where entrepreneurial activities are directed. We start from the...

Abstract: The rise of economics as one of the main (some will advance the most important) “source” of competition law discourse is well documented. This study focuses on a facet of the integration of economic analysis in competition law: "economic transplants". The term “economic...

We discuss and compare the remedies in the two cases antitrust cases of the European Union (EU) against Microsoft. The first EU case alleged (i) that Microsoft illegally bundled the Windows Media Player (WMP) with Windows; and (ii) that Microsoft did not provide adequate documentation that would...

This fascinating and highly relevant book facilitates discussion on the difficult technical, legal and economic issues with respect to innovation, competition and welfare raised, through the span of more than a decade, by the US and EC Microsoft antitrust cases. It assesses their impact on the...