The optimal duration of a supply contract balances the costs of re-selecting a supplier against the costs of being matched to an inefficient supplier when the contract lasts too long. I develop a structural model of contract duration that captures this tradeoff and provide an empirical strategy...

Production processes are increasingly organized in international value-chain networks. The involved firms can be operating at arm’s length or be vertically integrated. Both the incidence and the direction of integration (backward or forward in the value chain) depend on specific...

Using a sample of long-term supply contracts collected from SEC filings, I show that hold-up concerns and information asymmetry are important determinants of contract design. Asymmetric information between buyers and suppliers leads to shorter term contracts. However, when longer duration...

This paper examines the relationship between a firm's leverage and that of its customers. We find that a firm's leverage is positively associated with its customer's leverage. We show that the positive leverage relationship is not driven by unobservable local and industry-specific shocks. To...

We show that firms gain visibility and shareholder base through disclosing supply-chain relationships with large and well-known trading partners in their SEC filings. Using a novel research design that focuses on the investor recognition effect of disclosures, we find a significant improvement...