3.3 Asset Specificity Theory - Readings

Recommended Readings and Primary Sources:

• Klein, Crawford, and Alchian, 1978, “Vertical Integration, Appropriable Rents, and the Competitive Contracting Process”
• Williamson, 1983, “Credible Commitments: Using Hostages to Support Exchange”
• Williamson, 1998, “The Institutions of Governance”
• Williamson, 2009, “Transaction Cost Economics: The Natural Progression” (Nobel Prize Lecture)

The free IO textbook pretty extensively covers asset specificity theory, appropriable quasi-rents, and even the Fisher Body example (it’s very famous):

• pp.69-79 in Jeffrey Church and Roger WareIndustrial Organization: A Strategic Approach (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000).
  
  Again, there is a free PDF from the authors.