IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/rje/randje/v26y1995iwinterp575-590.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Continuous Approximations in the Study of Hierarchies

Author

Listed:
  • Timothy Van Zandt

Abstract

Large organizations are typically modelled as hierarchies. Hierarchies are discrete structures (trees), but researchers frequently use continuous aproximations. The purpose of this article is to study the validity of these approximations. I show that modelling hierarchies with a continuum of tiers is not a good approximation. I also show, for a particular model of balanced hierarchies, that ignoring rounding operators and integer constraints in formulae derived from the discrete model can be a valid approximation, when hierarchies are suitably large. This is made precise by bounds on the relative errors of approximations.

Suggested Citation

  • Timothy Van Zandt, 1995. "Continuous Approximations in the Study of Hierarchies," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 26(4), pages 575-590, Winter.
    • Handle: RePEc:rje:randje:v:26:y:1995:i:winter:p:575-590
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0741-6261%28199524%2926%3A4%3C575%3ACAITSO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-9&origin=repec
    File Function: full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Van Zandt, Timothy, 2004. "Balancedness of Real-Time Hierarchical Resource Allocation," CEPR Discussion Papers 4276, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Phillip J. Lederer & Xiaobo Zheng, 2021. "Can information economics explain the organization of productive facilities?," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(3), pages 525-553, August.
    3. Andrea Patacconi, 2009. "Coordination and delay in hierarchies," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 40(1), pages 190-208, March.
    4. Saikat Datta, 1996. "On Control Losses In Hierarchies," Rationality and Society, , vol. 8(4), pages 387-412, November.
    5. Jacek Cukrowski & Manfred M. Fischer, 2007. "Efficient organization of information processing," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(1), pages 13-26.
    6. Meagher, Kieron J., 2003. "Generalizing incentives and loss of control in an optimal hierarchy: the role of information technology," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 273-280, February.
    7. Andrea Patacconi, 2005. "Optimal Coordination in Hierarchies," Economics Series Working Papers 238, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • D2 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations
    • D3 - Microeconomics - - Distribution
    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design

    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:rje:randje:v:26:y:1995:i:winter:p:575-590. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.rje.org .

    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.