Relational contracts and supplier turnover in the global economy

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Defever, Fabrice; Fischer, Christian; Suedekum, Jens
• 署名单位: City St Georges, University of London; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-1996
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2016.09.002
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 147-165
• 关键词: Firm organization; Input sourcing; RELATIONAL CONTRACTS; Supplier search

摘要

Headquarters and their specialized component suppliers have a vital interest in establishing long-term collaborations. When formal contracts are not enforceable, such efficiency-enhancing cooperations can be established via informal agreements, but relational contracts have been largely ignored in the literature on the international organization of value chains. In this paper, we develop a dynamic property rights model of global sourcing. A domestic headquarter collaborates with a foreign input supplier and makes two decisions in every period: i) whether to engage in a costly search for a better partner, and ii) whether to make a non-binding offer to overcome hold-up problems. Our key result is that the possibility to switch partners crucially affects the contractual nature of buyer-supplier relationships. In particular, some patient firms do not immediately establish a relational contract, but only when they decide to stop searching and thus launch a long-term collaboration with their supplier. Using firm-product-level data of fresh Chinese exporters to the US, we obtain empirical evidence in line with the predictions of our theory. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.