Start of Main Content
Journal Article
Make Versus Buy In Trucking: Asset Ownership, Job Design, and Information
American Economic Review
Author(s)
Explaining patterns of asset ownership is a central goal of both organizational economics and industrial organization. We develop a model of asset ownership in trucking, which we test by examining how the adoption of different classes of on-board computers (OBCs) between 1987 and 1997 influenced whether shippers use their own trucks for hauls or contract with for-hire carriers. We find that OBCs' incentive-improving features pushed hauls toward private carriage, but their resource-allocation-improving features pushed them toward for-hire carriage. We conclude that ownership patterns in trucking reflect the importance of both incomplete contracts and of job design and measurement issues.
Date Published:
2003
Citations:
Baker, George, Thomas N. Hubbard. 2003. Make Versus Buy In Trucking: Asset Ownership, Job Design, and Information. American Economic Review. (3)551-572.