To Make or Buy: An Allocation of Attention
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Sharon Gifford
This paper presents a novel explanation of the decision by a firm to make an input within the firm rather than to out-source the production to another firm. Due to the limited attention of the manager/entrepreneur, time spent overseeing production in-house has an opportunity cost: the neglect of potential new products/markets. Outsourcing production economizes on attention, but writing and negotiating contracts also has an opportunity cost: the neglect of current operations. This paper derives the endogenous transaction costs of writing a contract with another party and shows that positive transaction costs are not sufficient for the optimal internalization of transactions. However, positive net transaction costs results in the optimal decision to produce the input internally. In addition, although there are larger firm sizes of higher value than obtainable under the optimal policy, the optimal policy maximizes the social value of each individual transaction.
©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Advances Article
- Policy Advice with Imperfectly Informed Experts
- Backward Induction and Model Deterioration
- Contributions Article
- Search and Bargaining in Large Markets With Homogeneous Traders
- To Make or Buy: An Allocation of Attention
- A Simple Inducement Scheme to Overcome Adoption Externalities
- Optimal Dynamic Portfolio Risk with First-Order and Second-Order Predictability
- Uniform Proofs of Order Independence for Various Strategy Elimination Procedures
- Players With Limited Memory
- Precedents and Timing: A Strategic Analysis of Multi-Plaintiff Litigation
- Optimal Auctions with Endogenous Entry
- Topics Article
- Multiple-Object Auctions Around a Circle
- Market Size and Vertical Equilibrium in the Context of Successive Cournot Oligopolies
- Trade and Linked Exchange; Price Discrimination Through Transaction Bundling
- A Sequential Signaling Model of the Sale of an Invention to an Oligopolist
- Vertical Differentiation, Asymmetric Information and Endogenous Bank Screening
- Patent Renewal Fees and Self-Funding Patent Offices
- Imitation and Long Run Outcomes
- Counterfactual Reasoning and Common Knowledge of Rationality in Normal Form Games
- Unraveling of Information: Competition and Uncertainty
- A Theory of Vague Expected Utility
- Sequential Decision-Making and Asymmetric Equilibria: An Application to Takeovers
Articles in the same Issue
- Advances Article
- Policy Advice with Imperfectly Informed Experts
- Backward Induction and Model Deterioration
- Contributions Article
- Search and Bargaining in Large Markets With Homogeneous Traders
- To Make or Buy: An Allocation of Attention
- A Simple Inducement Scheme to Overcome Adoption Externalities
- Optimal Dynamic Portfolio Risk with First-Order and Second-Order Predictability
- Uniform Proofs of Order Independence for Various Strategy Elimination Procedures
- Players With Limited Memory
- Precedents and Timing: A Strategic Analysis of Multi-Plaintiff Litigation
- Optimal Auctions with Endogenous Entry
- Topics Article
- Multiple-Object Auctions Around a Circle
- Market Size and Vertical Equilibrium in the Context of Successive Cournot Oligopolies
- Trade and Linked Exchange; Price Discrimination Through Transaction Bundling
- A Sequential Signaling Model of the Sale of an Invention to an Oligopolist
- Vertical Differentiation, Asymmetric Information and Endogenous Bank Screening
- Patent Renewal Fees and Self-Funding Patent Offices
- Imitation and Long Run Outcomes
- Counterfactual Reasoning and Common Knowledge of Rationality in Normal Form Games
- Unraveling of Information: Competition and Uncertainty
- A Theory of Vague Expected Utility
- Sequential Decision-Making and Asymmetric Equilibria: An Application to Takeovers
