This paper seeks to explain the technological forces that led to the rise of vertically integrated corporations in the late 19th Century and the opposing forces that led to a vertical-to-horizontal transition in the computer industry one hundred years later. I first model the technology of step...

Many products are manufactured in networks of firms linked by transactions, but comparatively little is known about how or why such transaction networks differ. This paper investigates the transaction networks of two large sectors in Japan at a single point in time. In characterizing these...