Econometrica

Journal Of The Econometric Society

An International Society for the Advancement of Economic
Theory in its Relation to Statistics and Mathematics

Edited by: Guido W. Imbens • Print ISSN: 0012-9682 • Online ISSN: 1468-0262

Econometrica: Nov, 2013, Volume 81, Issue 6

Organizing the Global Value Chain

https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA10813
p. 2127-2204

Pol Antràs, Davin Chor

We develop a property‐rights model of the firm in which production entails a continuum of uniquely sequenced stages. In each stage, a final‐good producer contracts with a distinct supplier for the procurement of a customized stage‐specific component. Our model yields a sharp characterization for the optimal allocation of ownership rights along the value chain. We show that the incentive to integrate suppliers varies systematically with the relative position (upstream versus downstream) at which the supplier enters the production line. Furthermore, the nature of the relationship between integration and “downstreamness” depends crucially on the elasticity of demand faced by the final‐good producer. Our model readily accommodates various sources of asymmetry across final‐good producers and across suppliers within a production line, and we show how it can be taken to the data with international trade statistics. Combining data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Related Party Trade database and estimates of U.S. import demand elasticities from Broda and Weinstein (2006), we find empirical evidence broadly supportive of our key predictions. In the process, we develop two novel measures of the average position of an industry in the value chain, which we construct using U.S. Input–Output Tables.


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Supplemental Material

Supplement to "Organizing the Global Value Chain"

This zip file contains the replication files for the manuscript.

Supplement to "Organizing the Global Value Chain"

This online appendix documents several detailed proofs from Sections 2 and 3 of the manuscript that were omitted due to space constraints.  It also contains Appendix Tables 1-10 and Appendix Figures 1-2, which were mentioned in the main text of the paper.