A large theoretical literature focuses on the question: What determines firms’ boundaries?Recently, Garicano and Santos and Holmstrom and Milgrom have proposed theories in whichfirms’ boundaries reflect the division of labor across individuals. This paper discussesstrategies for generating...

In a setting of R&D co-opetition we study, by using an all-pay auction approach, howcollaboration affects strategic decisions during a patent contest, and how the latter influences thepossible collaboration network structures the firms can hope to form. The all pay auctionapproach allows us to...

This paper reviews the characteristics and magnitude of information technology (IT) outsourcing as well as studies its labor productivity effects with a representative sample of Finnish businesses. Depending on the IT task in question, on average from one-third to two-thirds of IT has been...

Can formal contracts help resolving the holdup problem? We address this important question by studying the holdup problem in repeated transactions between a seller and a buyer in which the seller can make relation-specific investments in each period. In contrast to previous findings, we...

The paper investigates how competition between two multiproduct downstream firms in vertical relationships affects horizontal relationships: competitor collaboration and performance difference. When the upstream market consists of exclusive suppliers, the efficient firm may have incentive for...

This paper examines how a radical technological innovation affects alliance formation of firms and subsequent network structures. We use longitudinal data of interfirm R&D collaborations in the biopharmaceutical industry in which a new technological regime is established. Our findings suggest...

We develop a model of strategic contractual incompleteness that identifies conditions under which principals might omit even costlessly verifiable terms. We then use experiments to test comparative statics predictions of the model. While it is well known that verifiability imperfections can...

This paper investigates the relationship between exports and overseas links using data from the UK Community Innovation Survey. Overseas vertical and horizontal links are associated with an average increase in export intensity of 74 and 156 percent for vertical and horizontal overseas links...

Contracts should be matched to the unique situation of a Major Industrial Plant Project (MIPP). However, in reality, oftentimes contract forms are chosen that do not fit participant's (owners', contractors') competences and risk capabilities. In this paper, MIPP order contract forms are...

Since even before Copperweld Corp. v. Independence Tube Corp., 467 U.S. 752 (1984), it has been thought that antitrust needs some "theory of the firm" to inform its application of a "single-entity" defense in Sherman Act section 1 litigation. Not only is that sense mistaken, it is emblematic of...