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Do Investments in Specialized Knowledge Lead to Composite Good Industries?

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  • Antoine Soubeyran
  • Hubert Stahn

Abstract

We try to understand why firms producing goods by means of complementary components do not merge, especially in industries in which investments in component-based knowledge matters. As Audretsch, we state that these activities are developed by “individuals” who do their best to appropriate the return from their knowledge and whose effort is non-contractible. The organization of the industry into firms is identified to a partition of the set of individuals. In this context, we prove that an organization in which each individual hold his own firms is both stable with respect to unilateral deviation and optimal in the line of the property right approach. If the returns are high enough, this structure is even the only one which shares both properties. Copyright Springer 2007

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:sbusec:v:29:y:2007:i:1:p:119-135
    DOI: 10.1007/s11187-006-0008-9
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    Cited by:

    1. Erik E. Lehmann & Manuel T. Schwerdtfeger, 2016. "Evaluation of IPO-firm takeovers: an event study," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 47(4), pages 921-938, December.
    2. Erik Lehmann & Thorsten Braun & Sebastian Krispin, 2012. "Entrepreneurial human capital, complementary assets, and takeover probability," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 37(5), pages 589-608, October.
    3. Braun, Thorsten V. & Lehmann, Erik E. & Schwerdtfeger, Manuel T., 2011. "The stock market evaluation of IPO-firm takeovers," UO Working Papers 01-11, University of Augsburg, Chair of Management and Organization.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    composite goods; dual Cournot competition; lateral disintegration; incomplete contracts; property rights; D23; D43; L22;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure

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