Inter-connect standards increase choices; e.g., in cardiac pacemakers, the IS-1 standard enables the “pulse generator” from six manufacturers to be combined with the “lead set” from the other five to add up to thirty additional mixed-brand pacemakers. However, observed assortment...

quot;Pluralquot; distribution systems are often found in industrial markets. Although transaction cost analysis has been successfully applied to understanding decisions about distribution systems, these plural forms have been virtually ignored in extant empirical work. Critics suggest that...

Extant empirical work in TCA relies almost exclusively on cross-sectional survey data on firm behavior to test predictions about vertical integration, long-run contracts, alliances and the like. Such designs shed useful light on the causal mechanisms supposedly responsible for the effects, but...