Agency costs of vertical integration—the case of family firms,investor‐owned firms and cooperatives in the French wine industry

Vertical integration theory has long suggested internal costs related to changes in incentives due to vertical integration, which means that vertical integration may lead to agency costs. In this work, we specify the notion of agency costs of vertical integration and extend Ang et al. (2000)'s measurement of agency costs to provide an empirical assessment of these costs in the French wine industry. Our econometric analysis finds that the agency costs of vertical integration may reach 2–3% of sales. It also showed that operating expenses of vertical integration are lower for cooperatives than for other firms, while vertical integration is less rewarding for them. This raises questions on the relation between agency costs in cooperatives and their performance.     

Rules of Origin in North–South Preferential Trading Arrangements with an Application to NAFTA

All preferential trading agreements (PTAs) short of a customs union use rules of origin (ROO) to prevent trade deflection. ROO raise production costs and create administrative costs. This paper argues that in the case of the recent wave of North–South PTAs, the presence of ROO virtually limits the market access that these PTAs confer to the Southern partners. In the case of NAFTA, we find average compliance costs around 6% in ad valorem equivalent, undoing the tariff preference (4% on average) for a large number of tariff lines. Administrative costs amount to 47% of the preference margin. These findings are coherent with the view that North–South PTAs could well be viewed like a principal–agent problem in which the Southern partners are just about left on their participation constraint.     

Imports and TFP at the firm level: the role of absorptive capacity

This paper estimates the effect of the decision to import intermediate goods and capital equipment on Total Factor Productivity (TFP) at the firm level on a panel of Spanish firms (1991–2002). We use two alternative approaches. In the first, we estimate TFP and apply a diff‐in‐diff estimator with a control group constructed by propensity‐score matching. In the second, direct method, we estimate TFP with imported inputs as a state variable in one stage. Both approaches show that the effect of a firm's decision to source intermediates and capital equipment abroad on its TFP depends critically on its capacity to absorb technology, measured by the proportion of skilled labour.     

Endowments,Specialization, and Policy

The paper explores the relationship between industry shares in production and their determinants including factor endowments, technology, and government policies, in a GDP–function framework. We use a new international panel dataset on production and trade compiled by the World Bank. As an intermediate step we calculate Hicks‐neutral productivity indices that vary across industries, time, and countries. We find that own‐TFP is robustly associated with industry shares across time and countries and that, after correcting for these productivity differences, output shares are related to factor endowments (Rybczynski effects) in a plausible way. Once Rybczynski effects are controlled for, we find little evidence of demand‐side policies (import tariffs) affecting the allocation of resources; we find, however, more role for supply‐side policies as the relative size of capital‐intensive industries is positively associated with infrastructure–capital endowments.     

Collateral,bank monitoring and firm performance: the case of newly established wine‐farmers

The present study aims to learn how collateral affects firm performance in the case of newly established wine producers. The issue is to identify the effects of collateral in situations of asymmetric information when the bank is the main financial partner of the entrepreneurs involved. On one hand, the use of collateral may reduce the risk of overinvestment by entrepreneurs and thereby reduce the risk of repayment default. On the other hand, collateral may induce bad performance linked to a reduced monitoring of the investments by the bank. We herein test both hypotheses in two different cases: when the bank monitors the investments and when the bank does not.     

Harmonizing External Quotas in an FTA: A Step Backward?

This paper explores how political–economy forces shape quantitative barriers against the rest of the world in an FTA. We show that whereas the dilution of lobbying power in an FTA typically leads to a relaxation of external quotas, this result is likely to be overturned as integration deepens. In particular, we show that cooperation among member countries on the level of their external quotas, cross–border lobbying by import–competing interests in the free–trade area, and the consolidation of national external quotas into a single one, all lead to stiffer restrictions against imports from the rest of the world. We also show that, unlike tariffs, endogenous quotas are not crucially affected by the presence of rules of origin.     

Lobbying, Counterlobbying, and the Structure of Tariff Protection in Poor and Rich Countries

A political economy model of protection is used to determineendogenously the intersectoral patterns of protection. Threepropositions are derived that are consistent with the stylizedpatterns of tariff protection in rich and poor countries: Nominalprotection rates escalate with the degree of processing, protectionis higher on average in poor countries, and rich countries protectagriculture relatively more than they protect manufacturing,whereas poor countries do the reverse. Numerical simulationsfor archetypal rich and poor economies confirm that the endogenouslydetermined structure of protection is broadly consistent withobserved patterns of protection.     

Why OECD Countries Should Reform Rules of Origin

With preferential trade agreements on the rise worldwide rulesof origin—which are necessary to prevent trade deflection—areattracting increasing attention. At the same time, preferenceerosion for Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) recipientsis increasing resistance to further multilateral negotiations.Drawing on different approaches, this article shows that thecurrent system of rules of origin that is used by the EuropeanUnion and the United States in preferential trade agreements(including the GSP) and that is similar to systems used by otherOrganisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countriesshould be drastically simplified if developed economies reallywant to help developing economies integrate into the world tradingsystem. In addition to diverting resources for administrativetasks, current rules of origin carry significant compliancecosts. More fundamentally, it is becoming increasingly clearthat they are often been designed to force developing economiesto buy inefficient intermediate products from developed economiesto "pay for" preferential access for the final product. Theevidence also suggests that a significant share of the rentsassociated with market access (net of rules of origin compliancecosts) is captured by developed economies. Finally, the restrictivenessof rules of origin is found to be beyond the levels that wouldbe justified to prevent trade deflection, suggesting a captureby special interest groups. The article outlines some alternativepaths to reforms. JEL codes: F13, F15     

Regional Integration and Lobbying for Tariffs Against Nonmembers

We study the impact of regional trading arrangements (RIAs) on tariff policy toward nonmembers in a three-good, three-country political economy model. Comparing free-trade areas (FTAs) with and without rules of origin and customs unions (CUs) with varying degrees of economic and political integration, we show how increasingly deep integration can lead to rising protection against nonmember imports. Other differences between FTAs and CUs, like the extent of free-riding in a CU and any component of a CU's tariff designed to improve the members' terms of trade, are not explicitly accounted for. Nevertheless, the results suggest that FTAs are likely to welfare dominate CUs.