Essays on outsourcing and hold-up

This thesis consists of three essays on topics concerning the hold-up problem and outsourcing.;Chapter 1 asks whether the hold-up problem is crucial in shaping firm boundaries. I present a holdup model and prove that the under-investment problem can be solved if the surplus from an up-front investment accrues in more than one period and the investing party has a chance to terminate the flow of surplus from the investment prior to its full realization. The result suggests that hold-up need not be a major impediment to arm's length transactions.;Chapter 2 develops a model that illustrates firms outsource in order to pool risk. I first analyze the sources of surplus from risk-pooling. I then explicitly study three common outsourcing contracts and evaluate their performance in terms of pooling risk under different information structures. The result suggests that risk-pooling can be one of the motives for outsourcing. However, whether outsourcing can be efficient in pooling risk depends crucially on the information structures.;Chapter 3 argues that foreign competition is the main driving force for the dramatic increase in cognitive skill requirements in U.S. since the early 70s. There are theoretical arguments in support of foreign competition changing skill requirements through its effects on capital deepening. Using data from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, we construct various weighted skills requirement measures from 1971 to 2001. We observe three empirical regularities: (1) While the average skill requirements of occupations in the U.S. economy shifted towards more cognitive skills and away from manual skills, this trend happened significantly more dramatically in the manufacturing sector than in the non-manufacturing sector. (2) Manufacturing industries that were more exposed to foreign competition accumulated more capital over time. (3) Foreign competition changes skill requirements primarily through its effect on capital deepening.