Transaction costs, equipment leasing, and the economic theory of the firm

This dissertation revises the Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) model of the "optimal boundaries" problem (vertical and horizontal integration). The revisions address irregularities in the empirical literature's operationalization of "asset-specificity," as well as shortcomings in TCE's adaptation of learning- and knowledge-based theories in its construct "human asset specificity." One achievement is reduction of TCE's "environmental factors" (uncertainty, complexity, bounded rationality) into one transaction-level measure of how accurately outputs can be predicted from inputs, and inputs proven from outputs ("causal indeterminacy"). By distinguishing private knowledge of causation from firm-specific knowledge, the model accounts for phenomena TCE cannot explain involving such non-specific assets as trade secrets. The dissertation provides a TCE account of "core competence" in terms of investment in private knowledge. This is used to explain the prevalence of outsourcing over spinning-off as a form of divestment, a challenge for the standard TCE model. The dissertation identifies equipment leasing as a paradigm problem for the study of optimal boundaries. Lease-or-borrow is fundamentally a decision between obtaining capital asset services through integration (debt) or contracting (lease), yet unlike vertical integration, it avoids problems with intractability (and irrefutability) associated with arguments about human resources. A formal model is provided, featuring the differential treatment of leased and collateralized assets in bankruptcy, which shows that risk of involuntary, non-opportunistic bankruptcy can induce a preference for integration. This contradicts TCE claims that opportunism is a strict precondition for integration, formally demonstrating that only "imperfect cooperation" is required. The model further demonstrates that asset-specificity is functionally equivalent to a subjective difference of opinion about the value of contingent claims, as might arise from causal indeterminacy. Under asset-specificity, values are objectively different, but this is only a sufficient (not a necessary) condition for integration. The dissertation rejects TCE arguments that the optimal boundaries of a firm are determined exclusively by firm-specific (i.e. hard to market) assets, finding that they can instead be determined and changed by private knowledge of business activities characterized by uncertain cause-and-effect relationships.