Market Monitoring and Organizational Form

现代经济呈现出多种多样的组织形式：从小型业主经营的公司到员工所有的合伙企业、合作社、非营利组织，最后是投资者所有的公司。经济学中的一个基本问题是理解导致这些不同组织形式的力量，从而决定经济中生产性企业的结构。该项目提出了一个经济框架，用于研究伙伴关系的经济学及其在专业服务中的作用。这种方法突出了有利于形成合作伙伴关系的三个因素：(1)人力资本在生产中的重要性；(2)客户方面缺乏信息，这可能导致他们担心他们将获得的服务质量；(3)合作伙伴关系和公司在雇用和选择高级员工方面的不同动机。开发的理论模型将解释为什么合作伙伴关系在专业服务中是典型的，在专业服务中，人力资本是生产的主要投入，所提供的服务的性质可能很难被消费者准确评估，但在制造、技术或低技能服务行业中很少观察到。与此项目相关的是一系列广泛的影响政策问题，涉及法律和监管政策应适应哪些组织形式。在这一领域最显著的经验规律之一是，在制造业、科技业和许多服务业中，绝大多数企业要么是小型自营企业，要么是较大的投资者所有的公司。然而，在法律、医药、咨询、会计、建筑、广告等专业服务领域，传统的组织形式一直是专业伙伴关系。没有一个统一的框架来理解伙伴关系和公司之间的区别，也没有一个统一的框架来理解导致这种特殊组织形式的专业服务的具体经济学。这个项目将为更广泛地调查专业服务的市场结构、研究这些行业的法律和监管问题以及解释关于专业组织结构的经验证据提供一个起点。

Modern economies exhibit a broad diversity of organizational forms: from small owner-operated firms to employee-owned partnerships, cooperatives, non-profits, and finally investor-owned corporations. A fundamental problem in economics is to understand the forces that lead to these different forms of organization and thus determine the structure of productive enterprise in the economy. This project proposes an economic framework for studying the economics of partnerships and their role in the professional services. The approach highlights three ingredients that favor the formation of partnerships: (1) the importance of human capital in production; (2) a lack of information on the part of clients that leads them potentially to be concerned about the quality of the service they will obtain; and (3) the differing incentives of partnerships and corporations in the hiring and selection of senior employees. The theoretical model developed will explain why partnerships are typical in the professional services, where human capital is primary input to production and the nature of the service provided may be quite difficult for consumers to accurately assess, but rarely observed in manufacturing, technology, or lower-skill service industries.Associated with this project is a rich set of broad impact policy questions concerning which forms of organization the law and regulatory policy should accommodate. One of the most striking empirical regularities in this area is that throughout manufacturing, technology, and many service industries, the great majority of enterprises are either small owner-operated firms or larger investor-owned corporations. However, in the professional services -- law, medicine, consulting, accounting, architecture, advertising-the traditional form of organization has been the professional partnership. There is no single coherent framework for understanding the differences between partnerships and corporations, or for understanding the specific economics of professional services that have led to this particular form of organization. This project will offer a starting point for a broader investigation of market structure in the professional services, for examining legal and regulatory issues in these industries, and for interpreting empirical evidence about the structure of professional organizations.