Determinants of Asset Ownership: A Study of the Carpentry Trade

30 Pages Posted: 1 Mar 2002

See all articles by Duncan Simester

Duncan Simester

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Sloan School of Management

Birger Wernerfelt

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Sloan School of Management

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: April 2002

Abstract

We use a dataset describing ownership of productive assets in the carpentry trade to evaluate several factors influencing the allocation of asset ownership among employers and employees. The findings suggest that the allocation involves a tradeoff between two incentive effects influencing how the employee uses the asset and what the employer decides it should be used for. There is also evidence that more expensive assets and assets that are shared by more than one employee are more likely to be owned by the employer. The results suggest that a general theory of asset ownership should be able to account for at least these four effects.

Keywords: Asset Ownership, Theory of the Firm

JEL Classification: J3, L0, L2

Suggested Citation

Simester, Duncan and Wernerfelt, Birger, Determinants of Asset Ownership: A Study of the Carpentry Trade (April 2002). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=300250 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.300250

Duncan Simester (Contact Author)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Sloan School of Management ( email )

Management Science
Cambridge, MA 02142
United States
617-258-0679 (Phone)
617-258-7597 (Fax)

Birger Wernerfelt

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Sloan School of Management ( email )

100 Main Street
E62-416
Cambridge, MA 02142
United States
617-253-7192 (Phone)
617-258-7597 (Fax)

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
234
Abstract Views
2,855
Rank
237,334
PlumX Metrics