Corporate hierarchies and international trade: Theory and evidence

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Marin, Dalia; Verdier, Thierry
• 署名单位: University of Munich; Paris School of Economics; Institut Polytechnique de Paris; Ecole des Ponts ParisTech
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-1996
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2014.08.002
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 295-310
• 关键词: International trade with endogenous firm organizations; Decentralized management and trade; Endogenous congruence in the firm; Corporate organization in similar countries; Empirical test of the theory of trading firms

摘要

Corporate organization varies within countries and between countries. We develop a theory which explains the variation in levels of decentralization across firms and links it to the trade environment that firms face. We introduce firms with internal hierarchies in a Melitz and Ottaviano (2008) model of international trade. We show that international trade increases the conflict of interest between CEO/owners and middle managers within firms and these eventually lead to decentralized corporate hierarchies. We test the theory with original data on the internal organizations of 2200 Austrian and German firms and find that the empirical evidence is consistent with the model's predictions. (C) 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V.