{"title":"Obamacare and the Theory of the Firm","authors":"E. Elhauge","doi":"10.7208/CHICAGO/9780226255002.003.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7208/CHICAGO/9780226255002.003.0008","url":null,"abstract":"Health care fragmentation today raises costs and worsens health outcomes. The theory of the firm indicates that cost and quality problems could be addressed by permitting greater vertical integration among complementary health care providers. The puzzle is why such integration does not occur. The answer is that a host of regulatory and payment laws create artificial obstacles to such integration. Various provisions in Obamacare could and should be used to lift these obstacles and allow health care integration that could potentially save tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars.","PeriodicalId":290803,"journal":{"name":"O&M: The Firm as a Nexus of Contracts (Boundaries of the Firm) eJournal","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125362814","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
K. Lessmann, R. Marschinski, U. Kornek, Michael Finus, O. Edenhofer
{"title":"Emissions Trading with Non‐Signatories in a Climate Agreement - An Analysis of Coalition Stability","authors":"K. Lessmann, R. Marschinski, U. Kornek, Michael Finus, O. Edenhofer","doi":"10.1111/manc.12045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/manc.12045","url":null,"abstract":"type=\"main\"> We investigate how different designs of carbon offset mechanisms, like the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), affect the success of self-enforcing climate treaties. In a game-theoretic numerical model of coalition formation we find that participation in the agreement is negatively affected when strategic behavior and free-rider incentives matter. This does not change when selling targets restrict credit supply. Substantially higher participation emerges when the treaty restricts its signatories not to use the gains from credit trading to lower their emission caps. Despite the high sensitivity of participation to different CDM design, we find that global welfare levels achieved in various equilibria are remarkably similar.","PeriodicalId":290803,"journal":{"name":"O&M: The Firm as a Nexus of Contracts (Boundaries of the Firm) eJournal","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121347058","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Even More Than You Wanted to Know About the Failures of Disclosure","authors":"Florencia Marotta-Wurgler","doi":"10.1093/JRLS/JLU018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/JRLS/JLU018","url":null,"abstract":"Nobody reads fine print — even when it matters. The most common regulatory approach to attenuate the (perceived) problem of non-readership has long been mandatory disclosure. Despite it’s theoretical appeal, disclosure has not been found to be fully effective in practice. In More Than You Wanted to Know: The Failure of Mandated Disclosure, Omri Ben-Shahar and Carl Schneider offer the first systematic critique of disclosure regulation in all of its forms, including the latest innovations. This essay reviews the book by focusing on two points. First, it offers fresh evidence on the failure of mandated disclosure by looking at changes in disclosure over time in a common consumer contract, software End User License Agreements (EULAs). The evidence suggests that many of the problems identified by Ben-Shahar and Schneider have only worsened over time. In particular, during the past decade, the average EULA became more accessible and became longer and less buyer-friendly. It also remained highly complex. Second, it pushes back on the claim that consumers crave advice and not data and argues that relying on intermediaries to inform consumers about suffers from many of the problems the authors identify with disclosure regulation.","PeriodicalId":290803,"journal":{"name":"O&M: The Firm as a Nexus of Contracts (Boundaries of the Firm) eJournal","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121601294","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Transformation of Vertical Restraints: Per Se Illegality, the Rule of Reason and Per Se Legality","authors":"D. Sokol","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2297365","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2297365","url":null,"abstract":"This essay tracks Robert Bork’s influence on the development of vertical restraints in three areas of antitrust law - maximum resale price maintenance (“RPM”), vertical territorial restrictions, and Robinson Patman. In practice, across these areas, the shift in legal rules has not been one of per se illegality to the rule of reason but a more dramatic shift from per se illegality to one of presumptive legality under the rule of reason to close to per se legality.","PeriodicalId":290803,"journal":{"name":"O&M: The Firm as a Nexus of Contracts (Boundaries of the Firm) eJournal","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-10-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115401417","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Effect of Integration with Global Apparel Value Chain: The Case of Bangladesh Apparel Industry","authors":"Mizanur Rahman, Takrima Sayeda","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1354046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1354046","url":null,"abstract":"This article estimates the effect of integration with global apparel value chain on performance of Bangladesh apparel firms. The study does it by estimating an augmented Cobb–Douglas production function. The findings show that both backward linkage with foreign suppliers of intermediate inputs and forward linkage with global retailers of apparels positively affect firms’ output and labour productivity. By contrast, backward linkages with local suppliers have adverse effects on firm performances. The findings imply that it is a firm’s integration with the global apparel value chain, not the conventional backward linkage with domestic suppliers, that defines success of Bangladesh apparel industry in a globalizing world.","PeriodicalId":290803,"journal":{"name":"O&M: The Firm as a Nexus of Contracts (Boundaries of the Firm) eJournal","volume":"212 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126987432","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Assembling a Theory of the Firm","authors":"C. Bowman","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2477306","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2477306","url":null,"abstract":"We assemble a model of the firm that brings together contributions from transactions costs economics, the resource based view of the firm with insights from socio-technical and structural theories of organisation, and theories of bargaining and power relationships between the firm and its stakeholders. The main contributions derive from the explicit consideration of the firm’s technical system in an account of the firm’s scope and performance.","PeriodicalId":290803,"journal":{"name":"O&M: The Firm as a Nexus of Contracts (Boundaries of the Firm) eJournal","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128412497","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Effect of Explicit Communication on Pricing: Evidence from the Collapse of a Gasoline Cartel","authors":"C. Clark, J. Houde","doi":"10.1111/joie.12042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/joie.12042","url":null,"abstract":"type=\"main\"> We study the collapse of collusion in Quebec's retail gasoline market following a Competition Bureau investigation, and show that it involved two empirical regularities: high margins, and asymmetric price adjustments. Using weekly, station-level prices we test whether collusion was successful, and whether asymmetric adjustments were part of the cartel's strategy. We do so in the markets targeted by the investigation, and in markets throughout the province with similar pre-collapse pricing (cyclical markets). Our results suggest that stations in both target and cyclical markets adjusted pricing following the announcement: margins fell (by 30%/15% in target/cyclical markets), and adjustments became more symmetric.","PeriodicalId":290803,"journal":{"name":"O&M: The Firm as a Nexus of Contracts (Boundaries of the Firm) eJournal","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120295035","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Where Do New Market Factors Come From?","authors":"Per L. Bylund, Robert Wuebker","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2427141","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2427141","url":null,"abstract":"We propose a new perspective on the entrepreneurial firm, providing an account of entrepreneurial factor markets where — in contrast to received wisdom — the firm performs an important function as a precondition to and, in some sense, a creator of factor markets. Historically, scholars have conceptualized the firm as the platform from which the entrepreneur acts and creates competitive advantage. In contrast, we suggest that the firm is the means through which such advantages are established. In our view, the firm is an island of entrepreneurial innovation, which increases efficiency through increasing returns, and provides the means through which goods otherwise not possible in the market are brought into being. The firm, we conclude, is the entrepreneur’s means of realizing an imagined competitive advantage. We contribute to a rich literature exploring the roots of entrepreneurial strategy, and our exploration of entrepreneurial factor markets provides an essential theoretical link necessary for a creation-infused account of entrepreneurial firm formation.","PeriodicalId":290803,"journal":{"name":"O&M: The Firm as a Nexus of Contracts (Boundaries of the Firm) eJournal","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124781261","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Towards a Personal Identity Argument to Combine Potentially Conflicting Social Identities","authors":"Béatrice Boulu-Reshef","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2431998","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2431998","url":null,"abstract":"Despite the boom in research on identity in economics, the question of how to depict personal identity in a fashion that combines potentially conflicting social identities has so far been largely ignored. This paper introduces a framework that relies on the structure of the social realm that is exogenous to the individual in order to depict investment decisions as per social identities in a way that is consistent with the individual’s personal identity. The structure of the environment is identified using organizational boundaries and identity production functions are used to combine social identities. The inclusion of the various social spaces that are relevant to personal identity strategies enables one to simultaneously study identification strategies and individuation strategies. It also allows the depiction of social identities that may be conflicting, due to different social commitments and/or norm valuations. This externalist conception of the identity helps discuss the limitations of the conceptions of identity that have been internalist so far and accounts for the heterogeneity of identity strategies across individuals.","PeriodicalId":290803,"journal":{"name":"O&M: The Firm as a Nexus of Contracts (Boundaries of the Firm) eJournal","volume":"54 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126211303","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Faithful Strategies: How Religion Shapes Nonprofit Management","authors":"L. Filistrucchi, J. Prüfer","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2327087","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2327087","url":null,"abstract":"This paper studies the strategies employed by Catholic and Protestant nonprofit hospitals in Germany and traces them back to the theological foundations of those religions, which shape managers' values. We find that Catholic nonprofit hospitals follow a strategy of horizontal diversification and maximization of the number of patients treated. By contrast, Protestant hospitals pursue a strategy of horizontal specialization and focus on vertical differentiation, putting in more sophisticated inputs and producing more complex services. These effects increase if the environment of a hospital gets more competitive. The results are consistent with the predictions of our model, which supports the differences between Catholic and Protestant values identified in the literature.","PeriodicalId":290803,"journal":{"name":"O&M: The Firm as a Nexus of Contracts (Boundaries of the Firm) eJournal","volume":"143 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125845390","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}