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Determinants of organizational form: transaction costs and institutions in the European trucking industry

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Author Info
Benito Arruñada
Manuel González-Díaz
Alberto Fernández

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Abstract

We explain why European trucking carriers are much smaller and rely more heavily on owner-operators (as opposed to employee drivers) than their US counterparts. Our analysis begins by ruling out differences in technology as the source of those disparities and confirms that standard hypotheses in organizational economics, which have been shown to explain the choice of organizational form in US industry, also apply in Europe. We then argue that the preference for subcontracting over vertical integration in Europe is the result of European institutions--particularly, labor regulation and tax laws--that increase the costs of vertical integration. Copyright 2004, Oxford University Press.

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Publisher Info
Article provided by Oxford University Press in its journal Industrial and Corporate Change.

Volume (Year): 13 (2004)
Issue (Month): 6 (December)
Pages: 867-882
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Handle: RePEc:oup:indcch:v:13:y:2004:i:6:p:867-882

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Bertola, Giuseppe, 1990. "Job security, employment and wages," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 851-879, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Klein, Benjamin & Crawford, Robert G & Alchian, Armen A, 1978. "Vertical Integration, Appropriable Rents, and the Competitive Contracting Process," Journal of Law & Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(2), pages 297-326, October.
  3. Masten, Scott E & Meehan, James W, Jr & Snyder, Edward A, 1991. "The Costs of Organization," Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(1), pages 1-25, Spring.
  4. Thomas N. Hubbard, 2000. "The Demand For Monitoring Technologies: The Case Of Trucking," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 115(2), pages 533-560, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Caballero, Ricardo J. & Hammour, Mohamad L., 1998. "Jobless growth: appropriability, factor substitution, and unemployment," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48, pages 51-94, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  6. George P. Baker & Thomas N. Hubbard, 2003. "Make versus Buy in Trucking: Asset Ownership, Job Design, and Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 551-572, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Francine Lafontaine & Scott E. Masten, 2002. "Contracting in the Absence of Specific Investments and Moral Hazard: Understanding Carrier-Driver Relations in U.S. Trucking," NBER Working Papers 8859, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1994. "The Firm as an Incentive System," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 972-91, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1991. "Multitask Principal-Agent Analyses: Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership, and Job Design," Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(0), pages 24-52, Special I.
  10. Bronars, Stephen G & Deere, Donald R, 1993. "Unionization, Incomplete Contracting, and Capital Investment," Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 66(1), pages 117-32, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Hubbard, Thomas N, 2001. "Contractual Form and Market Thickness in Trucking," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 32(2), pages 369-86, Summer.
  12. Pirrong, Stephen Craig, 1993. "Contracting Practices in Bulk Shipping Markets: A Transactions Cost Explanation," Journal of Law & Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(2), pages 937-76, October.
  13. Blau, David M, 1987. "A Time-Series Analysis of Self-employment in the United State," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(3), pages 445-67, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Jack A. Nickerson & Brian S. Silverman, 2003. "Why aren't all Truck Drivers Owner-Operators? Asset Ownership and the Employment Relation in Interstate for-hire Trucking," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 12(1), pages 91-118, 03. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Pissarides, Christopher A. & Weber, Guglielmo, 1989. "An expenditure-based estimate of Britain's black economy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 17-32, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Francine Lafontaine & Joanne E. Oxley, 2004. "International Franchising Practices in Mexico: Do Franchisors Customize Their Contracts?," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 13(1), pages 95-123, 03. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  1. Josef Windsperger & Maria Jell, 2005. "Structuring residual income and decision rights under internal governance: results from the Hungarian trucking industry," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(5), pages 295-305. [Downloadable!]
  2. Hu, Y. & Huang, Z. & Hendrikse, G.W.J. & Xu, X., 2005. "Organization and Strategy of Farmer Specialized Cooperatives in China," Research Paper ERS-2005-059-ORG Revision, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus Uni. [Downloadable!]
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