This paper develops a model of informal procurement within Japanese keiretsu so as to consider effects on intermediate-good imports, such as auto parts. Parts-suppliers make relationship-specific investments that benefit the auto-maker and prices are determined by bargaining after investment has...

This paper considers the implications of relationship-specific investment within keiretsu for policies aimed at opening the Japanese market for intermediate goods, such as auto parts. Both VIEs applied to parts and VERs restricting Japanese exports of autos cause the keiretsu to import a wider...

We develop an incomplete-contracts model to jointly study firm boundaries and the al-location of decision rights within them. Integration has an option value: it gives firm owners authority to delegate or centralize decision rights, depending on who can best solve problems that may arise in the...

When an upstream monopolist supplies several competing downstream firms, it may fail to monopolize the market because it is unable to commit not to behave opportunistically. We build on previous experimental studies of this well-known commitment problem by introducing communication. Allowing the...

Using the universe of large Canadian manufacturing firms in 1988 and 1996, we investigate to what extent outsourcing decision can be explained by a simple property rights model. The unique availability of disaggregate information on outputs as well as inputs permits the construction of a very...

This paper examines complementarity among vertical integration decisions in automobile product development. Though most research assumes that contracting choices are independent of each other, contracting complementarity arises when the returns to a single vertical integration decision are...

This paper investigates the determinants of vertical integration using data from the UK manufacturing sector. We find that the relationship between a downstream (producer) industry and an upstream (supplier) industry is more likely to be vertically integrated when the producing industry is more...

This paper models the international competition between a domestic firm and its vertically integrated foreign rival. The domestic firm has the choice of developing its own production capability for an intermediate input, or of importing it from the foreign firm at a price set by the latter. In...