Since 1973 technological, political, regulatory, and economic forces have been changing the worldwide economy in a fashion comparable to the changes experienced during the nineteenth century Industrial Revolution. As in the nineteenth century, we are experiencing declining costs, increaing average (but decreasing marginal) productivity of labor, reduced growth rates of labor income, excess capacity, and the requirement for downsizing and exit. The last two decades indicate corporate internal control systems have failed to deal effectively with these changes, especially slow growth and the requirement for exit. The next several decades pose a major challenge for Western firms and political systems as these forces continue to work their way through the worldwide economy. © M. C. Jensen, 1993

It is often argued that as electronic markets lower the cost of market transactions, traditional roles for intermediaries will be eliminated, leading to "disintermediation." We discuss the findings of an exploratory study of intermediaries in electronic markets, which suggest that markets do not necessarily become disintermediated as they become facilitated by information technology. We explore thirteen case studies of firms participating in electronic commerce and find evidence of certain new emerging roles for electronic intermediaries, including: aggregating, matching suppliers and customers, providing trust, and providing inter-organizational market information. Two specific examples are discussed in greater detail to illustrate an unsuccessful strategy for electronic intermediation (BargainFinder) as well as a successful one (Firefly). KEY WORDS AND PHRASES: electronic data interchange, electronic markets, intermediaries, Internet commerce.

The paper reviews the literature on the impact of school resources on earnings and educational attainment. Three strong patterns characterize the existing research. First, papers which find no significant effect of school inputs on outcomes tend to examine resources at the school actually attended, while papers which do find an effect typically use average school inputs by state. The other two patterns have to do with time/age effects: papers which find no link also typically examine workers who were educated between 1960 and the early 1980's, and who were 32 or younger at the time of the wage observation. Papers which do find a link most frequently study older workers who were educated in the first half of the century. Similar patterns emerge in the literature on educational attainment and school resources, although the literature is surprisingly small. Five sets of hypotheses to explain these patterns are examined: 1) structural change, 2) age-dependence of the relation between schoo...

The article develops a process and control model for the analysis and design of inter-firm relations, in which both opportunism and trust play a role. Its aim is to develop a tool which helps to analyze combinations, balances and imbalances of trust and opportunism, formal and informal forms of governance, and viable sequences of strategies of governance, depending on different conditions. It employs both transaction cost economics and social exchange theory. 1

Highlighting the problems posed by a "unitary" conceptualization of the household, a number of economists have in recent years proposed alternative models. These models, especially those embodying the bargaining approach, provide a useful framework for analyzing gender relations and throw some light on how gender asymmetries are constructed and contested. At the same time, the models have paid inadequate or no attention to some critical aspects of intrahousehold gender dynamics, such as: what factors (especially qualitative ones) affect bargaining power? What is the role of social norms and social perceptions in the bargaining process and how might these factors themselves be bargained over? Are women less motivated than men by self-interest and might this affect bargaining outcomes? Most discussions on bargaining also say little about gender relations beyond the household, and about the links between extrahousehold and intrahousehold bargaining power. This paper spells out the nature ...

We develop a theoretical model to describe and explain variation in corporate governance among advanced capitalist economies, identifying the social relations and institutional arrangements that shape who controls corporations, what interests corporations serve, and the allocation of rights and responsibilities among corporate stakeholders. Our “actor-centered ” institutional approach explains firm-level corporate governance practices in terms of institutional factors that shape how actors’ interests are defined (“socially constructed”) and represented. Our model has strong implications for studying issues of international convergence. Corporate governance concerns “the structure of rights and responsibilities among the parties with a stake in the firm ” (Aoki, 2000: 11). Yet the diversity of practices around the world nearly defies a common definition. Internationalization has sparked policy debates over the transportability of best practices and has fueled academic studies on the prospects of international convergence (Guillén, 2000; Rubach & Sebora, 1998; Thomas & Waring, 1999). What the salient national differences in corporate governance are and how they should best be conceptualized remain hotly debated (Gedajlovic & Shapiro,

michel.callon @ ensmp.fr fabian.muniesa @ ensmp.fr Please do not quote without the permission of the authors Please refer to the published version of this paper: Callon, M. and Muniesa, F. (2003), “Les marchés économiques comme dispositifs collectifs de calcul”, Réseaux 21(122), pp. 189-233. How to address empirically the calculative character of markets without dissolving it? In our paper, we propose a theoretical framework that helps to deal with markets without debunking their calculative properties. In a first section, we construct a broad definition of calculation, grounded on the field of STS (science and technology studies). In the next sections, we confront this definition to three constitutive elements of markets: economic goods, economic agents and economic exchanges. First we examine the question of the calculability of goods: in order to be calculated, goods must be calculable. In the following section we introduce the notion of

This paper investigates the effects of lobbying by corporations when investments are irreversible and government cannot commit to tax policies. We show that industries which rely more heavily on sunk capital lobby more vigorously and are generally more successful in obtaining tax breaks. Thus lobbying can mitigate the capital levy problem. Nevertheless, these industries invest less in long-run equilibrium than more flexible ones. We then consider the effects of relaxing legal restrictions on corporate lobbying. When the deadweight costs of lobbying fall, taxes on sunk capital tend to fall, but political contributions may rise, as lobbyists compete more intensively for political favors. On balance, a ban of lobbying may therefore cause investment to rise or fall (JEL H2). Democratic governments must be responsive to the desires of voters, and so they may find it difficult to commit to stable policies over time. One consequence of commitment failure of concern to public finance economists is the “capital levy problem ” (Barry Eichengreen, 1990). In this standard view, high taxes on irreversible investments are tempting to governments since they seem to impose small deadweight costs. But this is anticipated by rational investors, so that saving is reduced, and sunk investments are discouraged in favor of more flexible ones. 1 While the problem doubtless arises in a number of real-world situations, the picture of commitment failure that emerges seems in general too bleak. We argue that a richer theory of political equilibrium leads to very different conclusions. While owners of sunk capital do not—in the language of Albert O. Hirschman (1970)—have a good “exit ” option in the face of taxation, there ∗ Marceau: CREFE and Département des sciences économiques, Université du Québec à

Supporters of market-based education reforms argue that school autonomy and between-school competition can raise student achievement. Yet U.S. reforms based in part on these ideas- charter schools, school-based management, vouchers and school choice- are limited in scope, complicating evaluations of their impact. In contrast, a series of remarkable reforms enacted by the Thatcher Government in Britain in the 1980s provide an ideal testing ground for examining the effects of school autonomy and between-school competition. In this paper I study one reform- described by Chubb and Moe (1992) as ‘truly revolutionary ’- that allowed public high schools to ‘opt out ’ of the local school authority and become quasi-independent, funded directly by central Government. In order to opt out schools had to first win a majority vote of current parents, and I assess the impact of school autonomy via a regression discontinuity design, comparing student achievement levels at schools where the vote barely won to those where it barely lost. To assess the effects of competition I use this same idea to compare student achievement levels at neighbouring schools of barely winners to neighbouring schools of barely losers. My results suggest two conclusions. First, there were large gains to schools that won the vote and opted out, on the order of a onequarter

This essay attempts to discern some of the general features of a legal system like the American by drawing on (and rearranging) commonplaces and less than systematic gleanings from the literature. The speculative and tentative nature of the assertions here will be apparent and is acknowledged here wholesale to spare myself and the reader repeated disclaimers. I would like to try to put forward some conjectures about the way in which the basic architecture of the legal system creates and limits the possibilities of using the system as a means of redistributive (that is, systemically equalizing) change. Our question, specifically, is, under what conditions can litigation 1 be redistributive, taking litigation in the broadest sense of the presentation of claims to be decided by courts (or court-like agencies) and the whole penumbra of threats, feints, and so forth, surrounding such presentation. For purposes of this analysis, let us think of the legal system as comprised of these elements: * This essay grew out of a presentation to Robert Stevens ’ Seminar on the Legal Profession and Social Change at Yale Law School in the autumn of 1970, while the author was Senior Fellow in the School’s Law and Modernization Program. It has gathered bulk and I hope substance in the course of a succession of presentations and revisions. It has accumulated a correspondingly heavy burden of obligation to my colleagues and students. I would like to acknowledge the helpful