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...

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 combines features of both property rights theory and multi-task principal-agent theory. We test the model...

This paper presents theory and evidence on horizontal industry structure, focusing on situations where plant-level scale economies are small and market power is not an issue. At issue is the question: what makes industries necessarily fragmented? The theoretical model distinguishes between the...

A central proposition of the transaction costs literature is that firms will substitute more complicated contractual arrangements for simple spot arrangements when transactions involve relationship-specific investments. I investigate this proposition by testing whether simple spot arrangements...

We investigate how the contractibility of actions affecting the value of an asset affects asset ownership. We examine this by testing how on-board computer (OBC) adoption affects truck ownership. We develop and test the proposition that adoption should lead to less ownership by drivers,...

This paper presents theory and evidence on horizontal industry structure. At issue is the question: what makes industries necessarily fragmented? The theoretical model examines trade-offs associated with affiliation and integration, and how they are affected by the contracting environment. I...