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Incentives, Scale Economies and Organizational Form

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  • Eric Maskin
  • Yingyi Qian
  • Chengagn Xu

Abstract

We model organization as the command-and-communication network of managers erected on top of technology (which is modeled as a collection of plants). In our framework, the role of a manager is to deal with shocks that affect the plants that he oversees directly or indirectly. Organizational form is then an instrument for (a) economizing on managerial costs, and (b) providing managerial incentives. We show that two particular organizational forms, the M-form (multidivisional form) and the U-form (unitary form), are the optimal structures when shocks are sufficiently "big." We argue however that, under certain empirical assumptions, the M-form is likely to be strictly preferable once incentives are taken into account. We conclude by showing that the empirical hypotheses on which this comparison rests are satisfied for Chinese data.
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Suggested Citation

  • Eric Maskin & Yingyi Qian & Chengagn Xu, 1997. "Incentives, Scale Economies and Organizational Form," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1801, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
  • Handle: RePEc:fth:harver:1801
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    Cited by:

    1. Chen, Ye & Li, Hongbin & Zhou, Li-An, 2005. "Relative performance evaluation and the turnover of provincial leaders in China," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 88(3), pages 421-425, September.
    2. Masahiko Aoki, 2013. "The Evolution of Organizational Conventions and Gains from Diversity," Chapters, in: Comparative Institutional Analysis, chapter 6, pages 59-71, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Hongbin Li & Li-An Zhou, 2003. "Political Turnover and Economic Performance: The Disciplinary Role of Personnel Control in China," Discussion Papers 00002, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Department of Economics.

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