Vertical integration and disruptive cross‐market R&D

We study how vertical market structure affects the incentives of suppliers and customers to develop a new input that will enable the innovator to replace the incumbent supplier. In a vertical setting with an incumbent monopoly upstream supplier and two downstream firms, we show that vertical integration reduces the R&D incentives of the integrated parties, but increases that of the nonintegrated downstream rival. Strategic vertical integration may occur whereby the upstream incumbent integrates with a downstream firm to discourage or even preempt downstream disruptive R&D. Depending on the R&D costs, vertical integration may lower the social rate of innovation.     

Vertical Foreclosure, Technological Choice, and Entry on the Intermediate Market

This paper analyzes the profitability of vertical integration for an upstream monopoly facing a potential competitor. We show that it depends on the technology used by the firm when it integrates. We distinguish two types of technologies: standard technologies, used by nonintegrated firms, and nonstandard technologies, reserved for integrated firms and implying the complete foreclosure of nonintegrated firms. Vertical integration with the adoption of a nonstandard technology dominates vertical integration with the adoption of a standard technology and is profitable, as long as the degree of competition in the downstream industry is sufficiently low.     

Vertical Foreclosure, Technological Choice, and Entry on the Intermediate Market

This paper analyzes the profitability of vertical integration for an upstream monopoly facing a potential competitor. We show that it depends on the technology used by the firm when it integrates. We distinguish two types of technologies: standard technologies, used by nonintegrated firms, and nonstandard technologies, reserved for integrated firms and implying the complete foreclosure of nonintegrated firms. Vertical integration with the adoption of a nonstandard technology dominates vertical integration with the adoption of a standard technology and is profitable, as long as the degree of competition in the downstream industry is sufficiently low.     

Endogenous vertical structure and trade policy in an import-competing market

We examine the endogenous determination of a vertical market in an import-competing market with import tariff. We show that if firms commit to vertical organization before the government's commitment to trade policy, the home and foreign firms choose vertical separation and vertical integration, respectively, at equilibrium under Bertrand competition. Under Cournot competition, the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium entails both firms separating their retailers. Comparing profits between Bertrand competition to Cournot competition, we find that upstream manufacturer's profit can be higher under Bertrand competition with integration than under Cournot competition with separation when comparing foreign upstream manufacturer's profit.     

Vertical externality and strategic delegation

This paper examines the effects of vertical externality generated by the upstream monopoly on the incentives that owners of competing downstream firms give their managers. It is shown that the introduction of the upstream monopoly may have significant effects on the incentive schemes for the downstream firms' managers. In particular, it is shown that in equilibrium, each owner obtains the simple Nash equilibrium outcome regardless of the mode of competition (quantity or price) in the downstream market. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Vertical Networks, Integration, and Connectivity

This paper studies competition in a network industry with a stylized two layered network structure, and examines: (i) price and connectivity incentives of the upstream networks, and (ii) incentives for vertical integration between an upstream network provider and a downstream firm. The main result of this paper is that vertical integration occurs only if the initial installed-base difference between the upstream networks is sufficiently small, and in that case, industry is configured with two vertically integrated networks, which yields highest incentives to invest in quality of interconnection. When the installed-base difference is sufficiently large, there is no integration in the industry, and neither of the firms have an incentive to invest in quality of interconnection. An industry configuration in which only the large network integrates and excludes (or raises cost of) its downstream rival does not appear as an equilibrium outcome: in the presence of a large asymmetry between the networks, when quality of interconnection is a strategic variable, the large network can exercise a substantial market power without vertical integration. Therefore, a vertically separated industry structure does not necessarily yield procompetitive outcomes.     

Foreclosure with Incomplete Information

We investigate the robustness of the new foreclosure doctrine and its associated welfare implications to the introduction of incomplete information. In particular, we let the upstream firm's marginal cost be private information, unknown to the downstream firms. The previous literature has argued that vertical integration is harmful because it allows an upstream monopolist to limit output to monopoly levels, whereas a disintegrated structure will "over-sell," producing more in equilibrium. By contrast, we find that with incomplete information, high-cost firms will often "under-sell" in equilibrium, that is, supply less than their monopoly output. Low-cost firms continue to over-sell, so all types of firms have a reason to integrate downstream, but this is socially harmful only for low-cost types. For high-cost firms vertical integration can be Pareto-improving, resulting in higher output, profits, and consumer surplus.     

Upstream market structure and downstream partial ownership

Existing studies on partial ownership usually overlook the effects of vertically related markets. Our paper highlights the importance of the upstream market on downstream firms' incentives to acquire partial ownership and the consequent welfare implications. In the main model, we assume that there are three firms in the downstream market, two of which may form a partial ownership arrangement. We find several results that are in contrast to those in the literature. First, the two firms will engage in partial ownership if the upstream market is an oligopoly (triopoly or duopoly). Second, partial ownership may raise total production, consumer surplus, and social welfare. This happens when the upstream market consists of a duopoly and the two firms involved in partial ownership are supplied by different suppliers. Third, the outsider, commonly known as a free rider in the literature, may become a victim of partial ownership. Our results are robust to several extensions, including a general $n$-firm framework, product differentiation, and uniform pricing by upstream firms. We also provide the conditions under which the curvature of the demand function and the convexity of the cost function motivate firms to form partial ownership.     

Downstream Competition, Foreclosure, and Vertical Integration

This paper analyzes the effect of competition among downstream firms on an upstream firm's payoff and on its incentive to integrate vertically when firms in both segments negotiate optimal contracts. We argue that as downstream competition becomes more intense, the upstream firm obtains a larger share of a smaller downstream industry profit. The upstream firm may encourage downstream competition (even excessively) in response to high downstream bargaining power. The option of vertical integration may be a barrier to entry downstream and may trigger strategic horizontal spinoffs or mergers. We extend the analysis to upstream competition.     

Greening the Supply Chain: When Is Customer Pressure Effective?

Suppliers face increasing pressure from their customers to improve their environmental performance. When firms downstream in the supply chain seek to achieve such improvements themselves, they frequently request that their suppliers adopt greener practices. This paper investigates the rationale for suppliers to comply with or resist the mandate of their customers to adopt the international environmental management standard ISO 14001 in the North American automotive industry. We argue that the effectiveness of such a mandate will vary according to the characteristics of the relationship between suppliers and customers. We contrast and test hypotheses based on both transaction cost and information theories to suggest that suppliers, whether in a dependent or distant relationship with their customers, have incentives to comply with the requests of their customers but through different mechanisms. Our study analyzed the characteristics of 3,152 automotive suppliers located in the United States, Canada, and Mexico over the 2000–2003 period. Findings indicate that suppliers with highly specialized assets, as well as younger suppliers, suppliers headquartered in Japan, and those reporting to the Toxic Release Inventory, are more likely to respond to their customers' pressures to adopt the certified management standard ISO 14001.     

Vertical Disintegration: A Dynamic Markovian Approach

In a model where a monopolistic downstream firm (assembler) negotiates simultaneously with each of its intermediate‐input suppliers the prices of the complementary components which enter its product, we analyze the process by which the assembler separates from its suppliers as a Markov Perfect equilibrium. Due to a negative strategic effect (the prices and profits of independent suppliers decrease when their number increases), the assembler’s marginal return from keeping an upstream subsidiary is lower than the market value of an independent supplier. Separation is immediate when the downstream firm’s initial number of upstream subsidiaries is below a critical level. It is progressive in the reverse case and eventually leads to a mixed strategy whereby the assembler keeps all the remaining subsidiaries with some probability, and sells all them off in one go with the complementary probability.     

Outsourcing with labor management

A vertically integrated Labor Managed (LM) monopoly is compared to a decentralized market arrangement where production is segmented among an upward LM firm producing an input and a downstream LM manufacturer of the final good. Unlike what usually occurs among profit maximizing firms, the vertical arrangement with outsourcing is socially superior to the vertically integrated one. However, the upstream section has an incentive to outsource, while the downstream section would rather oppose it.     

Vertical Networks and US Auto Parts Exports: Is Japan Different?

In a model where upstream network insiders conduct relationship-specific investment, downstream firms have an incentive to transact within networks. Evidence from US auto parts exports to 26 auto-producing countries supports key predictions of the model. Greater production scale for assemblers lowers imported parts per car. Vertical networks matter in two ways. First, although Japan's average import levels are not unusually low, non-Japanese suppliers have relatively low market penetration for parts categories where vertical keiretsu are prominent in Japan. Second, US-owned assembly abroad and foreign-owned parts production in the US both stimulate parts exports.     

Price and Quantity Competition in a Differentiated Duopoly with Upstream Suppliers

This paper analyzes the noncooperative game on the choice of strategic variable to set in duopoly in the presence of an upstream market for the input. For the case of labor input, the analysis shows that if the wage is the result of decentralized firm-union bargain, a duopoly producing substitutes may choose to compete either in the quantity space or in the price space, depending upon the distribution of bargaining power in the wage negotiation and the union's relative preference over the wage. For the case of input suppliers as profit-maximizing firms, the paper shows that a vertically differentiated duopoly may prefer to compete either in the quantity space or in a mixed strategy setting where the high-quality firm plays price and the low-quality firm plays quantity, depending upon the extent of substitutability, the degree of vertical product differentiation and the distribution of bargaining power in the input price negotiation.     

Strategic Choice of Channel Structure in an Oligopoly

The traditional wisdom holds that the benefits of a decentralized channel structure arise from downstream competitive relationships. In contrast, in their 2007 paper in the Accounting Review, Arya and Mittendorf show that the value of decentralization can also come from the upstream relationship when the downstream firms convey internal strife (decentralization) to an upstream input supplier. This paper demonstrates that the Arya and Mittendorf result continues to hold irrespective of the market structure of the upstream input market. However, if the upstream market is monopolized and the monopoly supplier follows a uniform price policy, decentralization may not result from the centralization–decentralization game. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Role of Upstream‐Downstream Competition on Bundling Decisions: Should Regulators Force Firms to Unbundle?

We develop an upstream–downstream model to analyze downstream firms' incentives to bundle. In our framework, the upstream firms are content providers (such as television stations) and the downstream firms are system operators (such as cable/satellite operators). We show that an a la carte regulation (i.e., a regulation that forces downstream firms to unbundle) leads to higher consumer surplus, if the unregulated equilibrium exhibits pure bundling (PB). Hence, our model predicts that in the television industry, which is mainly characterized by PB, an a la carte regulation will be beneficial for the consumers. If, on the other hand, the unregulated equilibrium is characterized by mixed bundling, then an a la carte regulation will increase consumer welfare provided that demand for multiple purchases is strong.     

Age diversity and firm performance in an emerging economy: Implications for cross‐cultural human resource management

This study tests the effect of age diversity on firm performance among international firms. Based on the resource‐based view of the firm, it argues that age diversity among employees will influence firm performance. Moreover, it argues that two contextual variables—a firm's level of market diversification and its country of origin—influence the relationship between age diversity and firm performance. By testing relevant hypotheses in a major emerging economy, that is, the People's Republic of China, this study finds a significant and positive effect of age diversity and a significant interactive effect between age diversity and firm strategy on profitability. We also find a significant relationship between age diversity and firm profitability for firms from Western societies, but not for firms from East Asian societies. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of this study's findings. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Advertising Media Planning,Optimal Pricing,and Welfare

This paper analyzes optimal media planning strategies in a pricing‐advertising competition model where firms can use mass and specialized advertising. We find that although targeted advertising avoids the wasting of ads, firms might find it optimal to mix specialized advertising with the mass media. We also show that the characteristics of the specialized media available crucially affect the outcome of price competition between firms, which can range from a full fragmentation of the market into local monopolies to lower average prices (compared to the case where firms had only mass advertising available). Regarding welfare, we prove that although the use of specialized advertising can lower consumer surplus and drive a fragment of consumers out of the market, this advertising technology is welfare‐improving, and can be Pareto superior.     

Picking a loser: Strategic surprise in a design and development game

We take a setting in which upstream players produce design ideas and downstream players select among these ideas to develop finished products. Design diversity is valuable at the upstream stage and coordination is valuable at the downstream stage. However, this outcome is not always realized. We show that an intermediary between upstream and downstream can improve on equilibrium outcomes by acting as a coordination and commitment device whose optimal policy must sometimes reward inferior ideas. We apply the model to technology standards, trend‐driven industries, political primaries, and the management of process innovation. We discuss incentives to vertically integrate.     

Vertical Disintegration

With economies of scale, a vertically integrated firm can lower its upstream cost by supplying downstream competitors. The competitors may strategically choose not to purchase from the integrated firm, unless the latter's price for the intermediate good is sufficiently lower than those of alternative suppliers. In a simple model of dynamic scale economies through learning by doing, equilibrium vertical disintegration occurs if and only if total industry profit is higher under vertical separation than under integration. The model bridges a logical gap in George Stigler's classic theory on vertical organization, and sheds light on the widely observed phenomenon of vertical disintegration .