This paper develops a model of informal procurement within Japanese keiretsu so as to consider effects on intermediate-good imports, such as auto parts. Parts-suppliers make relationship-specific investments that benefit the auto-maker and prices are determined by bargaining after investment has...

We study how the technological importance of inputs - measured by cost shares - is related to the decision to "make" or "buy" that input. Using detailed French international trade data and an instrumental variable approach based on self-constructed input-output tables, we show that...

We examine integration strategies of multinational firms that face a rich array of choices of international organization. Each firm in an industry must provide headquarter services from its home country, produce intermediate inputs, and assemble the intermediate goods into final products. Both...

This paper considers the implications of relationship-specific investment within keiretsu for policies aimed at opening the Japanese market for intermediate goods, such as auto parts. Both VIEs applied to parts and VERs restricting Japanese exports of autos cause the keiretsu to import a wider...

There are many industries in which potentially competitive segments require services provided by natural monopoly bottlenecks (essential facilities). Since it is difficult to regulate these facilities, developing countries are using Demsetz auctions, where the facility is awarded to the firm...

The literature on multinationals and developing countries has examined the causality" running from direct investment to changes in country characteristics (wages skills, etc.) and also the opposite direction of causality, from existing country characteristics to" inward direct investment. This...

A domestic firm is partially dependent on a foreign vertically integrated supplier for a key intermediate product when both firms are Cournot competitors in the market for the final product. The foreign supplier generally charges its domestic rival a price for the input that exceeds the...

We examine conditions under which a low cost vertically integrated manufacturer has an incentive to export an intermediate product to its higher cost (vertically integrated) rival rather than to vertically foreclose, fully cutting off supplies. The nature of supply conditions in the importing...