IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cep/cepops/43.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Knowledge-based Hierarchies: Using Organizations to Understand the Economy

Author

Listed:
  • Luis Garicano
  • Esteban Rossi-Hansberg

Abstract

We argue that incorporating the decision of how to organize the acquisition, use, and communication of knowledge into economic models is essential to understand a wide variety of economic phenomena. We survey the literature that has used knowledge-based hierarchies to study issues like the evolution of wage inequality, the growth and productivity of firms, economic development, the gains from international trade, as well as offshoring and the formation of international production teams, among many others. We also review the nascent empirical literature that has, so far, confirmed the importance of organizational decisions and many of its more salient implications.

Suggested Citation

  • Luis Garicano & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2014. "Knowledge-based Hierarchies: Using Organizations to Understand the Economy," CEP Occasional Papers 43, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    • Handle: RePEc:cep:cepops:43
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/occasional/op043.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Luis Garicano & Claire Lelarge & John Van Reenen, 2016. "Firm Size Distortions and the Productivity Distribution: Evidence from France," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(11), pages 3439-3479, November.
    2. Nicholas Bloom & Luis Garicano & Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen, 2014. "The Distinct Effects of Information Technology and Communication Technology on Firm Organization," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(12), pages 2859-2885, December.
    3. Lawrence F. Katz & Kevin M. Murphy, 1992. "Changes in Relative Wages, 1963–1987: Supply and Demand Factors," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(1), pages 35-78.
    4. Kremer, M & Maskin, E, 1996. "Wage Inequality and Segregation by Skill," Working papers 96-23, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    5. Thomas Lemieux, 2006. "Postsecondary Education and Increasing Wage Inequality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 195-199, May.
    6. William Fuchs & Luis Garicano & Luis Rayo, 2015. "Optimal Contracting and the Organization of Knowledge," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(2), pages 632-658.
    7. Gene M. Grossman & Esteban Rossi‐Hansberg, 2012. "Task Trade Between Similar Countries," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(2), pages 593-629, March.
    8. Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 1991. "Quality Ladders in the Theory of Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(1), pages 43-61.
    9. Jacques Crémer & Luis Garicano & Andrea Prat, 2007. "Language and the Theory of the Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(1), pages 373-407.
    10. Marin, Dalia & Schymik, Jan & Tarasov, Alexander, 2018. "Trade in tasks and the organization of firms," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 99-132.
    11. Garicano, Luis & Rossi-Hansberg, Esteban, 2012. "Organizing growth," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(2), pages 623-656.
    12. repec:dau:papers:123456789/10093 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Lorenzo Caliendo & Ferdinando Monte & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2015. "The Anatomy of French Production Hierarchies," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(4), pages 809-852.
    14. Daron Acemoglu, 1999. "Changes in Unemployment and Wage Inequality: An Alternative Theory and Some Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1259-1278, December.
    15. Aghion, Philippe & Howitt, Peter, 1992. "A Model of Growth through Creative Destruction," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(2), pages 323-351, March.
    16. David H. Autor & Frank Levy & Richard J. Murnane, 2003. "The skill content of recent technological change: an empirical exploration," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Nov.
    17. Maria Guadalupe & Julie Wulf, 2010. "The Flattening Firm and Product Market Competition: The Effect of Trade Liberalization on Corporate Hierarchies," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 105-127, October.
    18. Demsetz, Harold, 1988. "The Theory of the Firm Revisited," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 4(1), pages 141-161, Spring.
    19. Gene M. Grossman & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2008. "Trading Tasks: A Simple Theory of Offshoring," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 1978-1997, December.
    20. Michael Kremer & Eric Maskin, 1996. "Wage Inequality and Segregation," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1777, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    21. Cheng Chen, 2015. "Management Quality, Firm Organization and International Trade," 2015 Meeting Papers 53, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    22. Anna Gumpert, 2018. "The Organization of Knowledge in Multinational Firms," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(6), pages 1929-1976.
    23. Bernard, Andrew B. & Bradford Jensen, J., 1999. "Exceptional exporter performance: cause, effect, or both?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 1-25, February.
    24. Lorenzo Caliendo & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2012. "The Impact of Trade on Organization and Productivity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(3), pages 1393-1467.
    25. Eve Caroli & John Van Reenen, 2001. "Skill-Biased Organizational Change? Evidence from A Panel of British and French Establishments," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1449-1492.
    26. Robert E. Lucas Jr., 1978. "On the Size Distribution of Business Firms," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 9(2), pages 508-523, Autumn.
    27. Tåg, Joacim, 2013. "Production hierarchies in Sweden," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 121(2), pages 210-213.
    28. Lucian Bebchuk, 2005. "The Growth of Executive Pay," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 21(2), pages 283-303, Summer.
    29. Acemoglu, Daron & Autor, David, 2011. "Skills, Tasks and Technologies: Implications for Employment and Earnings," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 12, pages 1043-1171, Elsevier.
    30. Bernard, Andrew B. & Jensen, J. Bradford, 1997. "Exporters, skill upgrading, and the wage gap," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 3-31, February.
    31. Luis Garicano, 2000. "Hierarchies and the Organization of Knowledge in Production," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(5), pages 874-904, October.
    32. Baker, George & Holmstrom, Bengt, 1995. "Internal Labor Markets: Too Many Theories, Too Few Facts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 255-259, May.
    33. Yingyi Qian, 1994. "Incentives and Loss of Control in an Optimal Hierarchy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(3), pages 527-544.
    34. Steven N. Kaplan & Joshua Rauh, 2013. "It's the Market: The Broad-Based Rise in the Return to Top Talent," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(3), pages 35-56, Summer.
    35. Henry G. Manne, 1965. "Mergers and the Market for Corporate Control," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 73(2), pages 110-110.
    36. Sattinger, Michael, 1993. "Assignment Models of the Distribution of Earnings," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 831-880, June.
    37. George Baker & Michael Gibbs & Bengt Holmstrom, 1994. "The Wage Policy of a Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(4), pages 921-955.
    38. Ananth Seshadri & Nicolas Roys, 2012. "Economic Development and the Organization of Production," 2012 Meeting Papers 456, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    39. Garicano, Luis & Hubbard, Thomas N., 2012. "Learning about the nature of production from equilibrium assignment patterns," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 136-153.
    40. Francois Geerolf, 2015. "A Static and Microfounded Theory of Zipf's Law for Firms and of the Top Labor Income Distribution," 2015 Meeting Papers 516, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    41. Prescott, Edward C & Boyd, John H, 1987. "Dynamic Coalitions: Engines of Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(2), pages 63-67, May.
    42. Marc J. Melitz, 2003. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1695-1725, November.
    43. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Melissa S. Kearney, 2008. "Trends in U.S. Wage Inequality: Revising the Revisionists," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(2), pages 300-323, May.
    44. Henry G. Manne, 1965. "Mergers and the Market for Corporate Control," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 73(4), pages 351-351.
    45. Smeets, Valerie & Warzynski, Frederic, 2008. "Too many theories, too few facts? What the data tell us about the link between span of control, compensation and career dynamics," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 687-703, August.
    46. Prescott, Edward C & Visscher, Michael, 1980. "Organization Capital," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(3), pages 446-461, June.
    47. Daron Acemoglu & Mohamed Mostagir & Asuman Ozdaglar, 2014. "Managing Innovation in a Crowd," NBER Working Papers 19852, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    48. Sherwin Rosen, 1982. "Authority, Control, and the Distribution of Earnings," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(2), pages 311-323, Autumn.
    49. Jeremy T. Fox, 2009. "Firm-Size Wage Gaps, Job Responsibility, and Hierarchical Matching," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(1), pages 83-126, January.
    50. Radner, Roy, 1993. "The Organization of Decentralized Information Processing," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(5), pages 1109-1146, September.
    51. Luis Garicano & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2006. "Organization and Inequality in a Knowledge Economy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1383-1435.
    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. Lorenzo Caliendo & Ferdinando Monte & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2015. "The Anatomy of French Production Hierarchies," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(4), pages 809-852.
    2. Monte, Ferdinando, 2011. "Skill bias, trade, and wage dispersion," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 202-218, March.
    3. Cheng Chen & Wing Suen, "undated". "Delay Cost, Knowledge Hierarchy, and Wages," Boston University - Department of Economics - The Institute for Economic Development Working Papers Series dp-279, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    4. Rui Baptista & Francisco Lima & Miguel Preto, 2013. "Entrepreneurial skills and workers’ wages in small firms," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 309-323, February.
    5. T. Gries & R. Grundmann & I. Palnau & M. Redlin, 2017. "Innovations, growth and participation in advanced economies - a review of major concepts and findings," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 293-351, April.
    6. Luis Garicano & Claire Lelarge & John Van Reenen, 2016. "Firm Size Distortions and the Productivity Distribution: Evidence from France," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(11), pages 3439-3479, November.
    7. Valerie Smeets & Michael Waldman & Frederic Warzynski, 2019. "Performance, Career Dynamics, and Span of Control," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(4), pages 1183-1213.
    8. Pol Antràs & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2009. "Organizations and Trade," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 43-64, May.
    9. Anna Gumpert, 2018. "The Organization of Knowledge in Multinational Firms," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(6), pages 1929-1976.
    10. Davidson, Carl & Heyman, Fredrik & Matusz, Steven & Sjöholm, Fredrik & Zhu, Susan Chun, 2017. "Global engagement and the occupational structure of firms," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 273-292.
    11. Filippo Belloc & Gabriel Burdin & Fabio Landini, 2020. "Corporate Hierarchies and Labor Institutions," Department of Economics University of Siena 827, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    12. Luis Garicano & Thomas N. Hubbard, 2016. "The Returns to Knowledge Hierarchies," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 32(4), pages 653-684.
    13. Acemoglu, Daron & Autor, David, 2011. "Skills, Tasks and Technologies: Implications for Employment and Earnings," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 12, pages 1043-1171, Elsevier.
    14. Muendler, Marc-Andreas, 2017. "Trade, technology, and prosperity: An account of evidence from a labor-market perspective," WTO Staff Working Papers ERSD-2017-15, World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division.
    15. Bloom, Nicholas & Van Reenen, John, 2011. "Human Resource Management and Productivity," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 19, pages 1697-1767, Elsevier.
    16. Pol Antràs & Luis Garicano & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2006. "Offshoring in a Knowledge Economy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(1), pages 31-77.
    17. Gueyon Kim & Dohyeon Lee, 2020. "Offshoring and Segregation by Skill: Theory and Evidence," Working Papers 2020-073, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    18. Jose Joaquin Lopez & Jesica Torres, 2020. "Size-dependent policies, talent misallocation, and the return to skill," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 38, pages 59-93, October.
    19. Nicholas Bloom & Luis Garicano & Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen, 2014. "The Distinct Effects of Information Technology and Communication Technology on Firm Organization," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(12), pages 2859-2885, December.
    20. Edward P. Lazear, 1995. "Personnel Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121883, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Knowledge; hierarchies; wage inequality; international trade;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D2 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • F6 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization
    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs
    • L2 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior
    • O4 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cep:cepops:43. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/publications/occasional-papers/ .

    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.