20th Annual TRIO Conference.

• Position: Conferences

The Twentieth Annual TRIO Conference, so-named because it is jointly sponsored by the NBER, the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), and the Tokyo Center for Economic Research (TCER), took place on December 15 and 16 in Tokyo. This year's conference focused on "Organizational Innovation and Firm Performance." It was organized by George P. Baker, NBER and Harvard University; Takeo Hoshi, NBER and University of California, San Diego; and Hideshi Itoh and Sadao Nagaoka, Hitotsubashi University and TCER. The program was:

George P. Baker; Robert Gibbons, NBER and MIT; and Kevin J. Murphy, University of Southern California, "Strategic Alliances: Bridges Between Islands of Conscious Power"

Discussants: Hideshi Itoh, and Hodaka Morita, University of New South Wales

Ola Kvaloy, University of Stavanger, and Trond E. Olsen, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, "Peer-Dependent Incentives and Ownership Rights"

Discussants: Makoto Hanazono, Nagoya University, and Paul Oyer, Stanford University and NBER

Hideshi Itoh; Osamu Hayashida, Osaka Keizai University; and Tatsuya Kikutani, Kyoto University, "Complementarities among Authority, Responsibility, and Monitoring: Evidence from Japanese Business Groups"

Discussants: Steven Tadelis, UC, Berkeley, and Wako Watanabe, Tohoku University

Steven Tadelis, and Jonathan D. Levin, Stanford University, "A Costly Contracting Approach to the Organization of Production"

Discussants: Ola Kvaloy and Sadao Nagaoka

Akira Takeishi and Sadao Nagaoka, Hitotsubashi University; and Yoshihisa Noro, Mitsubishi Research Institute, "Determinants of Firm Boundaries: Empirical Analysis of the Japanese Auto Industry from 1984 to 2002"

Discussants: George P. Baker, and Tatsuya Kikutani, Kyoto University

Hirofumi Uchida, Wakayama University; Gregory F. Udell, Indiana University, and Wako Watanabe, Tohoku University, "Bank Size and Lending Relationships in Japan"

Discussants: Takeo Hoshi, and Ayako Yasuda, University of Pennsylvania

Paul Oyer, "Ability and Employer Learning: Evidence from the Economist Labor Market"

Discussants: Daiji Kawaguchi, Hitotsubashi University and TCER, and Hideo Owan, Aoyama Gakuin University

Arghya Ghosh and Hodaka Morita, University of New South Wales, "An Economic Analysis of Platform Sharing"

Discussants: Reiko Aoki, Hitotsubashi University and TCER, and Hans Gottinger, Hitotsubashi University

Strategic alliances range from short-term cooperative projects, through long-term...