HOW WIDE IS THE FIRM BORDER?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Atalay, Enghin; Hortacsu, Ali; Li, Mary Jialin; Syverson, Chad
• 署名单位: Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Philadelphia; University of Chicago
• 刊物名称: QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-5533
• DOI: 10.1093/qje/qjz026
• 发表日期: 2019
• 页码: 1845-1882
• 关键词: Vertical Integration; asset ownership; multinational firms; PROPERTY-RIGHTS; data models; TRADE; MARKET; gravity; COSTS; ORGANIZATION

摘要

We examine the within- and across-firm shipment decisions of tens of thousands of goods-producing and goods-distributing establishments. This allows us to quantify the normally unobservable forces that determine firm boundaries, that is, which transactions are mediated by ownership control, as opposed to contracts or markets. We find firm boundaries to be an economically significant barrier to trade: having an additional vertically integrated establishment in a given destination ZIP code has the same effect on shipment volumes as a 40% reduction in distance. These effects are larger for high value-to-weight products, faraway destinations, differentiated products, and IT-intensive industries. JEL Codes: F12, G34, L22, M11.