Standard economic models that guide competition policy imply that demand increases should lead to more, not fewer firms. However, Sutton's (1991) model illustrates that in some cases, demand increases can catalyze competitive responses that bring about shake-outs. This paper provides empirical...

Recent advances in information technology (IT) have enabled firms in many industries to give middle managers new access to timely production data. "Process monitoring" technologies give distant managers a window to production which can both lower their cost of monitoring subordinates and provide...

Interstate highway openings were permanent, anticipated demand shocks that increased gasoline demand and sometimes shifted it spatially. We investigate supply responses to these demand shocks, using county-level observations of service station counts and employment and data on highway...

Hierarchies allow individuals to leverage their knowledge through others. time. This mechanism increases productivity and amplifies the impact of skill heterogeneity on earnings inequality. To quantify this effect, we analyze the earnings and organization of U.S. lawyers and use the equilibrium...

Productivity reflects not only how efficiently inputs are transformed into outputs, but also how well information is brought to bear on resource allocation decisions. This paper examines how information technology has affected capacity utilization in the trucking industry. Estimates using 1997...

Productivity reflects not only how efficiently inputs are transformed into outputs, but also how well information is brought to bear on resource allocation decisions. This paper examines this empirically by looking at how on-board computer (OBC) adoption has affected capacity utilization in the...

What role do hierarchies play with respect to the organization of production and what determines their structure? We develop an equilibrium model of hierarchical organization, then provide empirical evidence using confidential data on thousands of law offices from the 1992 Census of Services....

What role do hierarchies play with respect to the organization of production and what determines their structure? We develop an equilibrium model of hierarchical organization, then provide empirical evidence using confidential data on thousands of law offices from the 1992 Census of Services....

Explaining patterns of asset ownership in the economy is a central goal of both organizational economics and industrial organization. We develop a model of asset ownership in trucking, which we test by examining how the adoption of different classes of on-board computers (OBCs) between 1987 and...

Moral hazard exists in expert service markets because sellers have an incentive to shade their reports of buyers' condition to increase the short-run demand for their services. The California vehicle emission inspection market offers a rare opportunity to examine how reputational incentives work...