While the literature on firm boundaries has been greatly influenced by transaction cost economics, strategy scholars often emphasize the importance of capabilities considerations in these decisions. This has led to a debate that, we suggest, has generated more heat than light. We argue that the...

In the New Property Rights approach the degree of incompleteness of markets is taken independently of the cost of the public ordering and of their efficiency relative to private orderings. In this approach "public markets," similarly to a Swiss cheese, are either assumed to be non-existent empty...

In the New Property Rights approach the degree of incompleteness of markets is taken independently of the cost of the public ordering and of their efficiency relatively to private orderings. In this approach "public markets", similarly to a Swiss cheese, are either assumed to be non-existent...

A large literature has developed in recent years that attempts to compare transaction cost and capabilities explanations of firms' vertical boundaries. Much of this literature has treated comparative capabilities (buyers' vs. potential suppliers') as determinants that are independent of...

The aim of this arti cle is to show that the New Insti tuti onal Economics is an interdisciplinary stream combining economics, law, organizati on theory, politi cal sciences, sociology, and anthropology. The main theories which are part of the New Insti tuti onal Economics are: Agency Theory,...

Metaphors are part of our daily lives as they help us understand the world. Economics, as other areas of knowledge, cannot go without metaphors. Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) – a prominent theoretical framework on economic organisation – is no different: it has been built on a set of...

This paper studies the effect of trade facilitation on vertical firm structure using plant-level data from Switzerland. Based on the Business Census and the Input-Output table, we first calculate a binary measure of vertical integration for all plants registered in Switzerland. We then estimate...

This paper proposes that transaction costs and capabilities are fundamentally intertwined in the determination of vertical scope, and identifies the key mechanisms of their co-evolution. Specifically, we argue that capability differences are a necessary condition for vertical specialization; and...