We study the behavior of a firm that consistently maximizes a misspecified profit function. We provide an equilibrium concept where the misspecification error remains undetected. We examine the uniqueness and stability of the equilibria. The model of the price-taking firm belongs to this class....

Firm integration is fundamentally shaped by contractual frictions. But do better contracting institutions, reducing these frictions, induce firms to be more or less deeply integrated? To address this question, this paper exploits unique micro data on ownership shares across more than 200,000...

We propose a new theory of the firm based on the premise that "the firm" characterizes a factor-integrative form of doing business that is often the most effective and efficient structure for doing well by doing bad. We define the terms and requirements involved for such a theory, and fulfill...

The Schumpeterian way of thinking for the analysis of innovation, as an evolutionary socioeconomic phenomenon, seems to be still of particular usefulness while the fundamental contribution by Nelson and Winter with the “evolutionary theory of economic change” is nowadays one of the most...

We examine how firms' vertical structure affects investment under output price uncertainty. Exploiting a unique industrial organization in the oil exploration and production industry, where certain producers vertically integrate into downstream segments, we find that these integrated producers...

I investigate changes in product scope, the number of products that a firm offers, over the business cycle and decompose the impact of such changes on aggregate output. By using the Nielsen Retail Scanner data of U.S. consumer goods purchases for 2007- 2014, I find that firm product scope is an...

In this paper we present new evidence on the relation between geographic diversification and firm risk using granular data on corporate locations. After accounting for determinants of geographic diversification, we find that geographically complex firms exhibit significantly higher risk than...

Social enterprises are business enterprises that seek to pursue social goals. In order to do that, they need to be able to make binding commitments to a variety of stakeholders that they will indeed pursue such goals. At least since Henry Hansmann wrote his seminal works on nonprofit...

Jensen and Meckling's 1976 definition of the firm as a legal fiction which serves as a nexus for contracts between individuals sits well with the Coasean narrative on the firm while at the same time being at odds with it. Available interviews with Jensen shed little light on the origins and...

This book provides introductions to five of the major topics to do with the history of the theory of production and the theory of the firm. The first chapter is an introduction. The second considers the change from a normative approach to the theory of production to a largely positive approach....

In the Grossman-Hart-Moore property rights theory, there are no frictions ex post (i.e., after non-contractible investments have been sunk). In contrast, in transaction cost economics ex-post frictions play a central role. In this note, we bring the property rights theory closer to transaction...

This paper investigates the effects on firms' occupational structure of shocks induced by the introduction of Technical Barriers to Trade (TBTs) in importing countries. We rely on the Specific Trade Concern (STC) data released by the WTO to identify trade-restrictive TBT measures, combined with...

Progressive Leadershipaddresses the diminishing and increasingly dysfunctional contribution of firm leadership in the operational effectiveness, performance, and survival of the firm in the business context of the twenty-first century.

The U.S. has always had two distinctly different methods for taxing business profits. The method that applies in any given case has always depended on the tax classification assigned to the firm. However, there has never been a satisfactory way to determine a firm's tax classification because...

This paper looks at the influence (or lack of influence) that ideas to do with the division of labour have had on the mainstream economic theory of the firm. The notion of the division of labour goes back, at least, to ancient India, the ancient Greeks and the ancient Chinese but it took two...

We examine the within- and across-firm shipment decisions of tens of thousands of goods-producing and distributing establishments. This allows us to quantify the normally unobservable forces that determine firm boundaries; which transactions are mediated by ownership control, as opposed to...

In the Grossman-Hart-Moore property rights approach to the theory of the firm, it is usually assumed that information is symmetric. Ownership matters for investment incentives, provided that investments are partly relationship-specific. We study the case of completely relationship-specific...

How do geographic frictions affect firm organization? We show theoretically and empirically that geographic frictions increase the use of middle managers in multi-establishment firms. In our model, we assume that a CEO's time is a resource in limited supply, shared across headquarters and...

This study examines the strategic overlap between a Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) investor and an entrepreneurial firm in the product, market, and technology spaces. Using this measure, I explore an incumbent's decision to invest into, versus acquire, a startup in a comparative setting. I show...

We investigate how transaction costs change the number of characteristics that are jointly significant for an investor's optimal portfolio, and hence, how they change the dimension of the cross section of stock returns. We find that transaction costs increase the number of significant...

Ronald Coase was in his early 20's when he developed his groundbreaking theory of the firm. This theory represented a new approach with no obvious precursors, but where did it arise from? This article traces the origins of Coase's theory of the firm and provides a context for its formation. I...

This study aims to clarify the firm in neo-institutional context. The firm is a particularly dynamic, constantly evolving process and an organizational structure. The firm is a symbiosis of entities, internal and external regulations, market and non-market mechanisms and relations, legal and...

Marshall's idea of 'representative firm' was created to reconcile his dynamic view of individual firms with the static view of industries. But this idea was somewhat nebulous and did not last very long in the economics literature. Marshall first wrote about the representative firm in his...

We propose both a well-mixed and spatially-structured evolutionary game to analyze the competitive behavior of retail firms in duopolistic markets. Firms from two different populations (high/low efficiency) compete and the available strategies are (i) Profit or (ii) Revenue maximization. Under...

We examine the within- and across-firm shipment decisions of tens of thousands of goods-producing and goods-distributing establishments. This allows us to quantify the normally unobservable forces that determine firm boundaries; that is, which transactions are mediated by ownership control, as...

Contents: Preface -- 1. Introduction to organization in the economic firm -- Part I: The structure of authority -- 2. Rank, level, and control -- 3. Height and thickness -- 4. Supervision -- 5. Time, order, and firm organization -- Part II: Organizational complexity -- 6. Complexity and...

Cover -- Titel -- Impressum -- Inhaltsverzeichnis -- Vorwort -- Einleitung -- Denkschulen zur Theorie des Unternehmens im Überblick -- Neoklassische Unternehmenstheorie -- Transaktionskostentheorie -- Ältere Ressourcentheorie -- Neuere Ressourcentheorien -- Kernargumentation der bisher...

1. Is Transaction Cost Economics Behavioral? -- 2. Clarifying Key Terms and Philosophical Foundations of Transaction Cost Economics -- 3. Opportunism and Bounded Rationality in Transaction Cost Economics: Values, Attitudes, or Behaviors? -- 4. Modeling Bounded Rationality: Mediation or...