This article provides a theory of interfirm partial ownership. We consider a setting in which an upstream firm can make two alternative types of investment: either specific investment that only a particular downstream firm can use or general investment that any downstream firm is capable of...

The existing studies on vertical integration focus on factors at the transaction parties’ level, such as asset specificity and contractual incompleteness. What is overlooked is the quality of the underlying institutions, in particular, contracting institutions. In this paper, using a World...

It has been taken for granted in the literature on the determinants of vertical integration that the effectiveness of contract enforcement is guaranteed, which is far from true even in some developed countries. In this paper, using a World Bank data set of manufacturing firms in China, we...

Theoretical and empirical research in the past decades has advanced our understanding of what determines the vertical boundary of a firm. An equally important but much less understood issue is the impacts of vertical integration on firm performance, mainly because the decision on vertical...