Information Technology, Productivity, and Asset Ownership: Evidence from Taxicab Fleets

The authors thank Matthew Bidwell, Olivier Chatain, Kira Fabrizio, Bronwyn Hall, Lorin Hitt, Michael Jacobides, Peter Klein, David Levine, Tammy Madson, Alex Mas, John Morgan, David Mowery, Steve Postrel, and Ted Sichelman; participants in seminars at Berkeley, the Harvard Business School, INSEAD, Northeastern University, and the University of California at Los Angeles; as well as participants at the Consortium on Competition and Cooperation, the Comparative Analysis of Enterprise Data Conference, the Atlanta Competitive Advantage Conference, the Institutions and Innovation Conference, the DRUID Society conference, the Academy of Management Conference, and the Organization Science conference in Bergen for their helpful comments. For so freely sharing the knowledge they have accumulated regarding the U.S. taxicab industry, the authors are grateful to C. J. Christina, Thomas Drischler, Stan Faulwetter, Alfred La Gasse, John Hamilton, Marco Henry, Kimberly Lewis, Aubby Sherman, and, especially, Craig Leisy. The authors are deeply indebted to Tom Cook and Gorman Gilbert for generously sharing the detailed responses to the TCRP survey with them. This research was conducted while the authors were Census Bureau research associates at the California Census Research Data Center (CCRDC). The authors thank the CCRDC and Ritch Milby in particular. Research results and conclusions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily indicate concurrence by the Bureau of Census. This paper has been screened to ensure that no confidential data are revealed. The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Fisher Real Estate Center; the Networks Electronic Commerce, the NET Institute; and the Ford IT Grant to the University of California, Berkeley.