This paper presents econometric evidence for a link between a country's level of egalitarianism and its inward foreign direct investment. In order to provide a theoretical rationale for this relationship, I embed Hart and Moore's (2008) novel contractual foundation into a simple model of global...

We develop a theory of a firm in an environment with incomplete contracts. The firm's headquarter decides on the complexity, the organization, and the global scale of its production process. Specifically, it decides: i) on the mass of symmetric intermediate inputs that are part of the value...

We develop a theory of a firm in an incomplete contracts environment which decides on its complexity, organization, and global scale. Specifically, the firm decides i) how thinly it wants to slice its production process by choosing the mass of symmetric intermediate inputs that are...

We introduce the Input Rank as a measure of relevance of direct and indirect suppliers in Global Value Chains. We conceive an intermediate input to be more relevant for a downstream buyer if a decrease in that input’s productivity affects that buyer more. In particular, in our framework, the...

Firm integration is fundamentally shaped by contractual frictions. But do better contracting institutions, reducing these frictions, induce firms to be more or less deeply integrated? To address this question, this paper exploits unique micro data on ownership shares across more than 200,000...

We address the question of how the internal organization of partnerships can be affected by moral hazard behavior of their division(s)/agent(s). We explore cases where two entregreneurs, each employing one agent subject ot moral hazard, decide how to conduct a research project together. The...

It is argued that the firm is the principal source of innovation and growth, a device for the establishment of technological competence, and for its continued development over time. Markets, products and background knowledge may change quite dramatically over time. Yet as a result of the...

Why do lawyers in some jurisdictions continue to ‘automatically’ exclude the 1980 UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) in their choices of law for international sales contracts? Why do lawyers in other jurisdictions approach the decision very differently? Why...

in großer Anteil der multinational tätigen Großunternehmen ist in technologieintensiven, dynamischen Branchen tätig und verfügt über ein breites Spektrum an technologischen Ressourcen. In den vergangenen Dekaden hat ein Großteil dieser Unternehmen zunehmend Wertschöpfungsleistungen an...

Available statistics tell us little about the economic consequences of increasing global dispersion of production processes. In order to shed light on the issue, we perform grass roots detective work to uncover the geography of value added in the case of a Nokia N95 smartphone circa 2007. The...