Testing for horizontal and vertical foreign investment spillovers in China, 1998–2007

As with many developing countries, the Chinese government hopes that knowledge brought by multinationals will spill over to domestic industries and increase their productivity. In this paper, we show that foreign investment originating outside of Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan has positive effects on individual firm level productivity, while foreign investment from HKMT firms does not. We also test for both horizontal (within the same industry) and vertical (upstream or downstream) linkages from foreign investment. Using a manufacturing firm-level panel for 1998 through 2007, we find zero or weak positive horizontal externalities. However, our results show that foreign direct investment (FDI) has generated positive productivity spillovers to domestic firms via backward linkages (the contacts between foreign affiliates and their local suppliers in downstream sectors) as well as forward linkages (between foreign suppliers and their local buyers in the upstream sectors).     

Market Performance Implications of the Transfer Price Rule

The “transfer price rule” (TPR) defines a vertical price squeeze as an input price, output price combination set by a vertically‐integrated firm monopoly producer of an essential input that would not allow the firm's downstream unit to earn at least a normal rate of return on investment in the “as‐if” case that it had to purchase the input at the price charged independent firms. In its 2009 linkLine decision, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the TPR for the purpose of enforcing the anti‐monopolization prohibition of Section 2 of the Sherman Act. In contrast, a vertical price squeeze, defined by a TPR‐like standard, is an abuse of a dominant position under Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. In this article, we model the impact of the TPR on market performance. We find that the TPR increases consumer surplus and net social welfare if all firms remain active in the downstream market. It sometimes induces the upstream firm to refuse to supply the downstream firm, and in such cases, consumer surplus and net social welfare are reduced. The impact of the TPR on market performance thus depends on whether or not an upstream firm can refuse to supply downstream firms on terms that would offer it at least a normal rate of return on investment.     

The role of foreign direct investment in the host-country firm selection process: firm-level evidence from Slovenian manufacturing

This paper examines the role of inward foreign direct investment (FDI) in firm selection processes in the Slovenian manufacturing sector in the 1994–2003 period. It adopts the firm dynamics framework that allows testing of selection effects directly by assessing the impact of foreign firms’ activity on the probability of exiting of local firms (crowding out). The results show that intra-industry productivity spillover effects offset only a minor part of the competition pressure which results from foreign firm entry, hence incumbent firms experience a drop in their survival probability upon a foreign firm’s entry within a particular industry. This result is driven by foreign firm entry of the greenfield type, as entry through the acquisition of existing firms has no significant effect. The strength of the crowding-out effect decreases with the incumbent firm’s export propensity. There is no significant evidence that inward FDI would stimulate the selection process through backward linkages in the upstream supplying industries, whereas foreign firms’ activity reduces the exit probability of downstream local customers (through forward linkages).     

To make or to buy from a common supplier? Strategic considerations and welfare consequences

Consider two downstream firms that each can either produce an input in-house or purchase it from an upstream supplier. We show that depending on the difference between the supplier's and the downstream firms' in-house production costs, outsourcing by both firms could help them achieve a Pareto improvement or leave them trapped in a prisoner's dilemma. Furthermore, we find that two downstream firms may play a chicken game in which each makes a sourcing decision different from its rival if the input supplier is not as efficient as in the previous cases. The welfare implications of various sourcing outcomes are explored.     

Innovating with Infrastructure: How India's Largest Carmaker Copes with Poor Electricity Supply

Conventional wisdom suggests that self-generation is a high-cost and inefficient—but often unavoidable—solution to unreliable public power supply in developing countries. This article examines the power problem from the perspective of a large industrial user and its upstream supplier firms in India. It analyzes the innovative generation and power-sharing system that this firm has devised to solve both its own power problems as well as those facing some of its suppliers. This research finds not only that self-generation is economical but also that self-generation combined with power-sharing serves as a “model” that policy makers can replicate to ameliorate the power problems plaguing firms in developing countries.     

The Impact of Multinational Presence on Domestic Investment: Firm‐Level Evidence from South Korea

In order to analyze the effects of foreign multinationals' presence on domestic firms' investment, we use a detailed firm level data set from South Korea for the 2006–2014 period. We combine it with the input‐output tables provided by the Bank of Korea to construct industry level measures of multinational presence in sectors that are horizontally and vertically linked, and estimate dynamic investment equations that are augmented with these foreign presence measures. We find a positive and significant effect of foreign presence in both horizontally and vertically linked industries on domestic firm's investment rate, with larger effects arising from multinational presence in the supplying sectors. Quantitatively, a 2 percentage point increase in the presence of multinational suppliers increases the domestic firm's investment rate by 3.24 percentage points. We also find that this effect is larger for small and medium firms, private firms, nonexporters, firms that are not part of a chaebol, and for firms in external finance dependent industries. A similar 2 percentage point increase in the foreign presence in downstream sectors increases the investment rate of domestic suppliers by 0.55 percentage points. This effect is larger if the domestic firm is part of a chaebol, or is in a less external finance dependent industry. Investment increase by 0.53 percentage points following a 2 percentage point increase in horizontal linkages.     

The geographic extent of global supply chains: evidence from Southeast Asia

We study the extent to which inter‐firm relationships are locally concentrated and what determines firm differences in geographic proximity to domestic or foreign suppliers and customers. From micro‐data on self‐reported customer and supplier data of firms in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, we measure the distances between firm pairs, that is, the distance to the main supplier and the distance to the main customer for the surveyed firms. The distances to suppliers and customers are shorter for indigenous firms in these Southeast Asian countries; but the arm's length differs across countries. The distance between firm pairs differs widely across firms within narrowly defined industries and countries. We find that both firm‐level transaction costs and capabilities affect the distances between customers and suppliers. The distance to suppliers is longer for firms that have accepted guest engineers from the main supplier to maintain production processes. Further, we find that the distances to suppliers and customers are longer for firms that have undertaken organisational change or improved marketing practices.     

Public Disclosures in the Presence of Suppliers and Competitors

Firms’ reluctance at times to publicly disclose financial information is often attributed to concern that the information may be used against them by self‐interested outside parties. These outside parties may interact with the firm in the horizontal realm (e.g., retail competitors) or in the vertical arena (e.g., wholesale suppliers). This article is built on the premise that fully understanding the strategic consequences of disclosure requires joint consideration of horizontal and vertical relationships. When both rivals and suppliers are accounted for, we demonstrate that (i) lower intra‐industry correlation in product demand favors disclosure, with the precise correlation‐cutoff dependent on the firm's use of input suppliers; and (ii) the more a firm relies on input suppliers with pricing power, the less attractive is disclosure.     

Upstream privatization and downstream licensing

This study attempts to investigate the impact of downstream foreign licensing on upstream privatization policy in a vertically related market, in which a public firm and a domestic private firm supply exclusively to downstream domestic and foreign firms, respectively. We show that downstream licensing occurs when the cost differential between downstream duopolists is small, and the optimal strategy under licensing is upstream partial privatization. In addition, downstream foreign licensing facilitates upstream privatization. We further show that downstream licensing improves (reduces) local welfare when the cost differential is large (small).     

An empirical analysis of contracting by Chinese firms

Why do firms use formal contracts or relational contracts with their business partners? The paper uses survey data based on a large number of Chinese firms to uncover some important factors for why and when formal contracts or relational contracts are used. This study identifies geographical location as an important factor in affecting Chinese firms' contracting decisions. We find that a firm is more likely to use formal contracts with its clients and suppliers if they are located in a city different from the firm's main business location. We also find that larger (smaller) firms tend to adopt formal (relational) contracts. However, while the number of clients has a negative impact on a firm's adoption of formal contracts with its clients, the number of suppliers has a positive impact on its adoption of formal contracts with the suppliers.     

The Impact of the Bullwhip Effect on Sales and Earnings Prediction Using Order Backlog

Recent work in the supply chain literature suggests that the variance in orders placed with suppliers will be larger than that of sales to buyers. This distortion in demand information increases as it is passed along the supply chain from customers to upstream suppliers and has been referred to as “the bullwhip effect.” In this paper, we argue that the bullwhip effect reduces the ability of order backlog to predict future sales and earnings for upstream suppliers. Results obtained from our empirical analysis support this proposition. We find that the impact of bullwhip on the predictive ability of order backlog is further accentuated in firms with longer operating cycles. Market intermediaries such as financial analysts, on average, are unable to fully account for differences in the predictive ability of order backlog. However, analysts belonging to employers that follow all firms in a vertical supply chain do a better job of understanding the impact of bullwhip on the predictive ability of order backlog. In additional tests, we find that the bullwhip effect also impedes the ability of inventory components to predict future sales and earnings.     

Customers’ Risk Factor Disclosures and Suppliers’ Investment Efficiency

This study examines the effect of downstream firms’ (i.e., customers’) risk factor disclosures contained in annual reports on the investment efficiency of upstream firms (i.e., suppliers). We find that more informative disclosures of customers’ risk factors are associated with less under‐ or overinvestment by suppliers. In addition, this inverse association is stronger when the suppliers are at a bargaining disadvantage, when they operate in the durable goods industries, and when they are more concerned about the volatility of future demand. Overall, our results suggest that risk factor disclosures provided by firms in their annual reports contain useful information that could potentially help their suppliers achieve better investment efficiency. Divulgation d'information sur les facteurs de risque des clients et efficience de l'investissement des fournisseurs     

Dynamics of Firm-Supplier Relationships in a Less Developed Economy: Evidence from African Manufacturing Firms

In this paper, we study supplier-firm interactions to explain firms' outsourcing relationships. We show that in an imperfect information setup a firm learns about the quality of its suppliers through repeated interaction. As the firm determines the suppliers' quality with greater precision, it gives a greater proportion of its contracts to these “better” suppliers. We report evidence from African manufacturing firms that is consistent with our hypothesis: both frequency and volume of transactions increase with the length of a firm's relationship with its supplier. These effects are stronger in poor contracting environments.     

Does market familiarity bless multinational in strategic competition?

This paper considers a competition between two multinationals (U, J) who compete in a third market (K). The multinationals have identical cost structures, but differ in that J comes from a country that is “taste-similar” to K, and hence produces products that match more closely the preferences of K residents. This similarity gives J an advantage in K's market, and if only one firm enters, J can earn higher profits. However, we show: (i) K may benefit more from the entry of the market-familiar firm (U), and (ii) in a strategic competition between the two firms, the market-familiarity may be a strategic disadvantage.     

Outsourcing and Vertical Integration in a Competitive Industry

We develop a partial equilibrium, perfectly competitive framework of a (potentially) vertically integrated industry. There are three types of firms: upstream firms that use primary factors to produce an intermediate good; downstream firms that use primary factors and intermediate goods to produce a final good; and vertically integrated firms that do both. We establish conditions under which vertically integrated firms exist and outsource (part of) the production of the intermediate input. We study the changes in industry configurations resulting from changes in costs and demand.     

Impacts of increased Chinese imports on Japan’s labor market

Using the Japanese firm/establishment-level census data, we investigate the impact of the Chinese import penetration on employment in Japan. We found negative impacts of the Chinese import penetration on total employment, especially in industries producing competing products to Chinese imports, and a positive impact of the import penetration in the industries from which firms purchase their inputs (upstream import penetration). The negative impacts are mainly driven by firms’ exit from the market while positive impacts are enjoyed by surviving firms. We did not find any significant impacts of the penetration in the industries to which firms sell their products (downstream penetration).     

Innovation strategies and productivity growth in developing countries: Firm-level evidence from Pakistani manufacturers

We examine the determinants of product, process, and organizational innovations, and their impact on firm labor productivity using data from a unique innovation survey of firms in Pakistan. We find significant heterogeneity in the impact of different innovations on labor productivity: Organizational innovation has the largest effect followed by process innovation. But unlike much of the literature, we found a negative impact of product innovation suggesting a disruption effect of new products. We find a strong impact of engaging in knowledge creation on product and process innovation. We also find that external knowledge networks and innovation cooperation play no significant role in firms’ decision to engage in innovation and its intensity, however, vertical linkages with suppliers (clients) promote product (process) innovations. Foreign competition has a negative effect on product innovation and a positive effect on organizational innovation. Exposure to foreign markets both in term of exporting and quality standard certification leads to better innovation performance.     

The Effects of Incentive Scheme and Task Difficulty on Employees' Altruistic Behavior Outside the Firm

Employer-sponsored opportunities for altruism outside the workplace can improve employee engagement and passion within the firm, enhance the firm's corporate visibility, and improve its recruitment. There is limited understanding of whether and how a firm's management control system on employees' daily tasks can influence employee willingness to engage in altruism outside the workplace. In this study, we investigate via an experiment how the incentive scheme (tournament vs. piece rate) on employees' daily tasks interacts with the difficulty level of these tasks (low vs. high) to affect employees' altruistic behavior outside the firm. Our results indicate that, compared to a piece-rate scheme, a tournament scheme leads to a greater decrease in non-winning participants' altruistic behavior outside the firm when the original, incentivized task is more difficult compared to when it is less difficult. Consistent with our theory, participants' feelings of excessive entitlement partially mediate the interaction effect of incentive scheme and task difficulty on participants' altruistic behavior outside the firm. This study informs firms about how the design of its incentive scheme on employees' daily task inside the firm and the nature of that task can influence employee willingness to act altruistically outside the firm.     

Microeconomic mechanisms behind export spillovers from FDI: evidence from Bulgaria

This paper studies how the presence of multinational enterprises affects the export performance of Bulgarian manufacturing firms—export spillovers from FDI. Using export data at the firm/product/destination level for the period 2004–2006, it finds positive forward spillover on export value and quantity, related to quality upgrading. Conversely, it finds negative (or insignificant) backward and horizontal spillover on export flows, related to quality downgrading. When aggregating data at the firm level and considering that a firm can operate in several sectors, the paper shows that the presence of foreign input suppliers allows domestic firms to export additional varieties of lower quality and upgrade the average quality of existing varieties, whereas the presence of foreign customers generates the opposite effect.     

Market power,uncertainty, and the level of trade

We consider a set of home firms, each of which has a stochastic requirement for a particular input. High-cost home firms can produce the input themselves. Low-cost foreign firms produce the input to sell it to home firms through an international market. Efficiency requires the input to be produced by foreign firms and traded in the market. Yet, home firms will always engage in inefficient home production. By producing some of its own input needs, a home firm cuts down on aggregate input demand, thus depressing prices in the market.