The Economic Lessons of Fisher Body–General Motors

The Fisher Body–General Motors case illustrates the costs of using inherently imperfect long‐term contracts to solve potential holdup problems, and therefore the advantages of vertical integration. Fisher Body held up General Motors by renegotiating its body supply contract so that, contrary to the original understanding, General Motors made half of the required investments in new body plants. This led to a decline in Fisher Body’s capital to sales ratio and, under the unchanged cost‐plus contract terms designed to provide Fisher Body with a return on its equity capital investments, produced a substantial wealth transfer from General Motors to Fisher Body. General Motors accepted this unfavourable contract adjustment because it was operating under a long‐term exclusive dealing contract that limited its ability to negotiate with Fisher over co‐located body plants. The exclusive dealing contract designed to protect Fisher Body’s original GM‐specific capacity investments against a potential holdup by General Motors thereby created a Fisher Body holdup of General Motors. The way in which Fisher Body accomplished its holdup demonstrates the importance of distinguishing inefficient holdup threats from efficient actual holdups.     

浦山及其学术思想

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University, both locatedin Cambridge, Massachusetts, have maintained a very collegial relationship, in that studentsfrom one of the two institutions could attend classes in the other and also receive appropriatecredit for doing so, although many students took advantage of this fine collegiality andsimply attended classes or seminars of interest, without receiving official academic credit.These practices and dual facilities explain …     

Job creation, job destruction, and the real exchange rate

Welfare gains from trade are reduced by adjustment costs associated with factor reallocation, but most studies of the effects of trade on labor markets focus only on net employment change. This paper takes a step toward identifying trade-related adjustment costs by estimating the effects of real exchange rates on labor reallocation using a new model of gross job creation and destruction applied to detailed U.S. manufacturing industries between 1973 and 1993. Trend real exchange rates significantly affect job reallocation but not net employment. Cyclical real exchange rates significantly affect net employment through job destruction only.     

Food expenditure patterns of working-wife families: Meals prepared away from home versus convenience foods

This paper investigates food expenditure patterns of working-wife families, focusing on the allocation of food dollars between two major time-saving options: meals prepared away from home and convenience foods. Data are drawn from the U.S. 1983 Consumer Expenditure Survey. Analysis of variance and regression techniques are used to compare expenditure patterns of families grouped by the wife's hours worked and her earnings. The findings suggest that working-wife families prefer the purchasing of meals prepared away from home to that of convenience foods. In particular, families with high-earning, full-time working wives buy the most meals prepared away from home, while the greatest expenditures on convenience foods are observed for families with moderate-earning working wives.