Blockchain technology is firmly established in the public awareness as a revolutionary new technology underpinning cryptocurrency. However, its potential applications can be found across sectors and industries in providing a novel way of producing coordination necessary to transact online,...

Digital advances and the emergence of disruptive technologies have dramatically changed the business models across sectors and operations economics. The scope of this paper is to contribute to analyze the current disruptive revolution in operations management in a digitalized global market...

We provide experimental evidence for the hypothesis that bounded rationality is an important element of the theory of the firm. We implement a simplified version of a mechanism designed to perfectly solve the holdup problem under conditions of perfect rationality (Maskin 2002). We test whether...

Headquarters and their specialized component suppliers have a vital interest in establishing long-term collaborations. When formal contracts are not enforceable, such efficiency-enhancing cooperations can be established via informal agreements, but relational contracts have been largely ignored...

This paper introduces the theory of firm organization under moral hazard into an equilibrium model of international trade with heterogeneous talents and technologies. The model is able to explain how the allocation of power and the provision of financial incentives inside firms varies within and...

I analyse firms organisational choices when they face uncertainty about institutional conditions in foreign locations with heterogeneous final good producers and incomplete contracts. As firms learn about the conditions abroad, the increasing offshoring activity increases competition in the...

This paper studies the effect of trade facilitation on vertical firm structure using plant-level data from Switzerland. Based on the Business Census and the Input-Output table, we first calculate a binary measure of vertical integration for all plants registered in Switzerland. We then estimate...

To explain organizational decisions in multistage production processes we assume a production process with one producer and two suppliers of which one is the firm's direct supplier and the other one is the supplier of the supplier. The firm decides only on the organizational form of her direct...

Final good production often requires a firm's headquarter services and a foreign supplier's manufacturing input. With incomplete contracts, firms that decide whether to choose integration or outsourcing of this supplier do not only have to consider the ex ante investment incentives that...

Radio spectrum is a vital asset and resource for mobile network operators. With spectrum in the 800 and 900 MHz bands coverage can be provided with fewer base station sites compared to higher frequency bands like 2.1 and 2.6 GHz. With more spectrum, i.e. wider bandwidth, operators can offer...