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Armando Rungi
- 12 June 2013
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1554Details
- Abstract
- We explore the nature of Business Groups, that is network-like forms of hierarchical organization between legally autonomous firms spanning both within and across national borders. Exploiting a unique dataset of 270,474 headquarters controlling more than 1,500,000 (domestic and foreign) affiliates in all countries worldwide, we find that business groups account for a significant part of value-added generation in both developed and developing countries, with a prevalence in the latter. In order to characterize their boundaries, we distinguish between an affiliate vs. a group-level index of vertical integration, as well as an entropy-like metric able to summarize the hierarchical complexity of a group and its trade-off between exploitation of knowledge as an input across the hierarchy and the associated communication costs. We relate these metrics to host country institutional characteristics, as well as to the performance of affiliates across business groups. Conditional on institutional quality, a negative correlation exists between vertical integration and hierarchical complexity in defining the boundaries of business groups. We also find a robust (albeit non-linear) positive relationship between a group's hierarchical complexity and productivity which dominates the already known correlation between vertical integration and productivity. Results are in line with the theoretical framework of knowledge-based hierarchies developed by the literature, in which intangible assets are a complementary input in the production processes.
- JEL Code
- L22 : Industrial Organization→Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior→Firm Organization and Market Structure
L23 : Industrial Organization→Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior→Organization of Production
F23 : International Economics→International Factor Movements and International Business→Multinational Firms, International Business
L25 : Industrial Organization→Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior→Firm Performance: Size, Diversification, and Scope
D24 : Microeconomics→Production and Organizations→Production, Cost, Capital, Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity, Capacity
G34 : Financial Economics→Corporate Finance and Governance→Mergers, Acquisitions, Restructuring, Corporate Governance - Network
- Competitiveness Research Network
- 4 January 2012
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1412Details
- Abstract
- This paper analyzes the performance of global value chains during the trade collapse. To do so, it exploits a unique transaction-level dataset on French firms containing information on cross-border monthly transactions matched with data on worldwide intrafirm linkages as defined by property rights (multinational business groups, hierarchies of firms). This newly assembled dataset allows us to distinguish firm-level transactions among two alternative organizational modes of global value chains: internalization of activities (intragroup trade/trade among related parties) or establishment of supply contracts (arm's length trade/trade among unrelated parties). After an overall assessment of the role of global value chains during the trade collapse, we document that intra-group trade in intermediates was characterized by a faster drop followed by a faster recovery than arm's length trade. Amplified fluctuations in terms of trade elasticities by value chains have been referred to as the "bullwhip effect" and have been attributed to the adjustment of inventories within supply chains. In this paper we first confirm the existence of such an effect due to trade in intermediates, and we underline the role that different organizational modes can play in driving this adjustment.
- JEL Code
- F23 : International Economics→International Factor Movements and International Business→Multinational Firms, International Business
F15 : International Economics→Trade→Economic Integration
L22 : Industrial Organization→Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior→Firm Organization and Market Structure