Research on industry life cycles suggests that competitive pressures are more severe during the shakeout stage, which could be associated with the emergence of a dominant design, than at other stages. Transaction-cost theory, on the other hand, assumes generally competitive markets and does not...

We study the determinants of make-or-buy decisions for engines made by every recorded U.S. auto firm during 1917-1933. Most make-or-buy studies testing predictions of transaction cost economics exclude smaller firms, even though their make-or-buy behavior might be different from large firms' due...