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Two-sided productivity heterogeneity, firm boundaries, and assortative matching
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Two-sided productivity heterogeneity, firm boundaries, and assortative matching

JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS & MANAGEMENT STRATEGY
14 Nov 2023
url
https://doi.org/10.1111/jems.12564View
Published, Version of Record (VoR) Restricted

Abstract

We consider a market where each firm is created by the combination of two complementary assets that are heterogeneous in their productivity. After assets match endogenously, their owners choose between two ownership structures: centralized organization (integration) and arm's length organization (nonintegration). Our main focus is on the interplay between productivity heterogeneity and firm boundary decisions. When firms choose between distinct ownership structures, the standard single-crossing condition that guarantees positive assortative matching may fail to hold. We provide a novel condition-the congruent marginal contributions property-which guarantees monotone matching with respect to asset productivity. Furthermore, we provide conditions under which integration at the bottom of the productivity ladder is the market equilibrium; an organizational pattern that has been largely unexplored by the theoretical and empirical literature. We investigate the effect of model primitives on the equilibrium distribution of output. Moreover, our model offers interesting testable implications regarding firm boundary decisions.

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UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#8 Decent Work and Economic Growth
#9 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
International collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Economics
Management
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