IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-15-00049.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A note on asset specificity

Author

Listed:
  • Roland Bel

    (Kedge Business School)

Abstract

In this note, we discuss the theoretical formulation of the concept of specificity and expose preliminary results showing that different types of asset specificity call for the use of different control rights. Contrary to transaction cost and property right theories, but in line with increasing empirical evidence, high levels of specificity do not necessarily lead to unified ownership.

Suggested Citation

  • Roland Bel, 2015. "A note on asset specificity," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 35(3), pages 1645-1651.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-15-00049
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2015/Volume35/EB-15-V35-I3-P165.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, 1998. "Power in a Theory of the Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(2), pages 387-432.
    2. Hart, Oliver & Moore, John, 1990. "Property Rights and the Nature of the Firm," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(6), pages 1119-1158, December.
    3. Roland Bel, 2013. "Access, Veto, and Ownership in the Theory of the Firm," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 29(4), pages 871-897, August.
    4. Ilya Segal, 2003. "Collusion, Exclusion, and Inclusion in Random-Order Bargaining," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(2), pages 439-460.
    5. Ilya Segal & Michael D. Whinston, 2000. "Exclusive Contracts and Protection of Investments," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 31(4), pages 603-633, Winter.
    6. Williamson, Oliver E, 1983. "Credible Commitments: Using Hostages to Support Exchange," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(4), pages 519-540, September.
    7. Hart, Oliver, 1995. "Firms, Contracts, and Financial Structure," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198288817, Decembrie.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Robert Gibbons & John Roberts, 2012. "The Handbook of Organizational Economics," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 9889.
    2. Ilya Segal & Michael D.Whinston, 2012. "Property Rights [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    3. Kim, Jongwook & Mahoney, Joseph T., 2008. "A Strategic Theory of the Firm as a Nexus of Incomplete Contracts: A Property Rights Approach," Working Papers 08-0108, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    4. Bernard Baudry & Virgile Chassagnon, 2012. "The vertical network organization as a specific governance structure: what are the challenges for incomplete contracts theories and what are the theoretical implications for the boundaries of the (hub," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 16(2), pages 285-303, May.
    5. He, Leshui, 2016. "Beyond asset ownership: Employment and assetless firms in the property rights theory of the firm," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 261-273.
    6. David de Meza & Mariano Selvaggi, 2004. "Exclusive Contracts Foster Relationship-Specific Investment," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 04/105, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    7. Valeria Gattai & Piergiovanna Natale, 2017. "A New Cinderella Story: Joint Ventures And The Property Rights Theory Of The Firm," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 281-302, February.
    8. Gersbach, Hans & Haller, Hans, 2020. "On efficient firm formation," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 1-12.
    9. João VIEIRA-MONTEZ, 2004. "Downstream Concentration and Producer's Capacity Choice," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 04.13, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    10. Tomas Mantecon & Kyojik Song & Haowen Luo, 2016. "The Control and Performance of Joint Ventures," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 45(2), pages 431-465, May.
    11. Andreas Roider, 2006. "Fisher Body revisited: Supply contracts and vertical integration," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 181-196, September.
    12. Hideshi Itoh & Hodaka Morita, 2015. "Formal Contracts, Relational Contracts, and the Threat-Point Effect," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 318-346, August.
    13. Valeria Gattai & Piergiovanna Natale, 2014. "Joint Ventures and the Property Rights Theory of the Firm: a Review of the Literature," Working Papers 287, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Dec 2014.
    14. David de Meza & Marianno Selvaggi, 2003. "Please Hold me Up: Why Firms Grant Exclusive Dealing Contracts," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 03/066, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    15. de Bragança, Gabriel Godofredo Fiuza & Daglish, Toby, 2017. "Investing in vertical integration: electricity retail market participation," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 355-365.
    16. Marco Zanobio, 2012. "Aspetti teorici della Corporate Governance," DISEIS - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia internazionale, delle istituzioni e dello sviluppo dis1202, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimento di Economia internazionale, delle istituzioni e dello sviluppo (DISEIS).
    17. Charlie Joyez, 2017. "Firm heterogeneity and the integration trilemma: The utility of Joint ventures in integration versus outsourcing models," Working Papers DT/2017/09, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    18. Bhattacharyya, Asish K, 2005. "State, liberalization, and investment question: issues in corporate governance," MPRA Paper 47233, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2007.
    19. Antoine Soubeyran & Hubert Stahn, 2007. "Do Investments in Specialized Knowledge Lead to Composite Good Industries?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 119-135, June.
    20. Francesconi, Marco & Muthoo, Abhinay, 2006. "Control Rights in Public-Private Partnerships," IZA Discussion Papers 2143, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Asset specificity; property rights; control rights; incomplete contracts;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D2 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations
    • L2 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-15-00049. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.