IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/proeco/v115y2008i2p542-552.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A game-theoretic approach to transfer pricing in a vertically integrated supply chain

Author

Listed:
  • Rosenthal, Edward C.

Abstract

We study the problem of setting transfer prices in a vertically integrated supply chain, in which the divisions share technology and transactions costs. We develop a cooperative game that provides transfer prices for the intermediate products in the supply chain. This model is applied both when the market prices for these products are known and also when their valuations differ. We provide a solution that is fair and acceptable to all divisions. In the perfect information case, the Shapley value generates the transfer prices, while in the asymmetric case we obtain transfer prices from the solution to a linear program.

Suggested Citation

  • Rosenthal, Edward C., 2008. "A game-theoretic approach to transfer pricing in a vertically integrated supply chain," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(2), pages 542-552, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:proeco:v:115:y:2008:i:2:p:542-552
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925-5273(08)00214-4
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alchian, Armen A & Demsetz, Harold, 1972. "Production , Information Costs, and Economic Organization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(5), pages 777-795, December.
    2. Gjerdrum, Jonatan & Shah, Nilay & Papageorgiou, Lazaros G., 2002. "Fair transfer price and inventory holding policies in two-enterprise supply chains," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 143(3), pages 582-599, December.
    3. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    4. Shelanski, Howard A & Klein, Peter G, 1995. "Empirical Research in Transaction Cost Economics: A Review and Assessment," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 11(2), pages 335-361, October.
    5. Tommy Staahl Gabrielsen & Guttorm Schjelderup, 1999. "Transfer Pricing and Ownership Structure," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 101(4), pages 673-688, December.
    6. Kriens, J. & van Lieshout, J. Th. & Roemen, J. & Verheyen, P., 1983. "Management accounting and operational research," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 339-352, August.
    7. Alles, Michael & Newman, Paul & Noel, James, 1998. "The value of information in internal management communication," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 295-317, August.
    8. Yunzeng Wang & Yigal Gerchak, 2003. "Capacity Games in Assembly Systems with Uncertain Demand," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 5(3), pages 252-267, January.
    9. Goetschalckx, Marc & Vidal, Carlos J. & Dogan, Koray, 2002. "Modeling and design of global logistics systems: A review of integrated strategic and tactical models and design algorithms," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 1-18, November.
    10. Michael Alles & Srikant Datar, 1998. "Strategic Transfer Pricing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(4), pages 451-461, April.
    11. Jack Hirshleifer, 1956. "On the Economics of Transfer Pricing," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29, pages 172-172.
    12. Rosenthal, E C, 1990. "Monotonicity of the Core and Value in Dynamic Cooperative Games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 19(1), pages 45-57.
    13. William J. Baumol & Tibor Fabian, 1964. "Decomposition, Pricing for Decentralization and External Economies," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 11(1), pages 1-32, September.
    14. Martin Shubik, 1962. "Incentives, Decentralized Control, the Assignment of Joint Costs and Internal Pricing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 8(3), pages 325-343, April.
    15. Gabrielsen, Tommy Staahl & Schjelderup, Guttorm, 1999. " Transfer Pricing and Ownership Structure," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 101(4), pages 673-688, December.
    16. Kriens, J. & van Lieshout, J.T.H.C. & Roemen, J.H.J. & Verheyen, P.A., 1983. "Management accounting and operational research," Other publications TiSEM da4f2baa-f699-48f2-80b7-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    17. Wilhelm, Wilbert & Liang, Dong & Rao, Brijesh & Warrier, Deepak & Zhu, Xiaoyan & Bulusu, Sharath, 2005. "Design of international assembly systems and their supply chains under NAFTA," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 467-493, November.
    18. Wettstein, David, 1994. "Allocation of resources in a divisionalized firm," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 51-58, August.
    19. Dikolli, Shane S. & Vaysman, Igor, 2006. "Information technology, organizational design, and transfer pricing," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1-2), pages 201-234, April.
    20. Yao, Dong-Qing & Yue, Xiaohang & Liu, John, 2008. "Vertical cost information sharing in a supply chain with value-adding retailers," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 838-851, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wu, Qiong & Ren, Hongbo & Gao, Weijun & Ren, Jianxing, 2017. "Benefit allocation for distributed energy network participants applying game theory based solutions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 384-391.
    2. Matsui, Kenji, 2011. "Intrafirm trade, arm's-length transfer pricing rule, and coordination failure," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 212(3), pages 570-582, August.
    3. Anca D. Cristea & Daniel X. Nguyen, 2016. "Transfer Pricing by Multinational Firms: New Evidence from Foreign Firm Ownerships," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 170-202, August.
    4. da Silva Stefano, Gustavo & Antunes, Tiago dos Santos & Lacerda, Daniel Pacheco & Wolf Motta Morandi, Maria Isabel & Piran, Fabio Sartori, 2022. "The impacts of inventory in transfer pricing and net income: Differences between traditional accounting and throughput accounting," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(2).
    5. Julio B. Clempner, 2018. "Strategic Manipulation Approach for Solving Negotiated Transfer Pricing Problem," Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 178(1), pages 304-316, July.
    6. Cascavilla, Alessandro, 2023. "Negotiated transfer pricing and uncertain regulation: a simulated trust game approach," MPRA Paper 118703, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Oderanti, Festus Oluseyi & De Wilde, Philippe, 2010. "Dynamics of business games with management of fuzzy rules for decision making," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(1), pages 96-109, November.
    8. Liu, Songsong & Papageorgiou, Lazaros G., 2018. "Fair profit distribution in multi-echelon supply chains via transfer prices," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 77-94.
    9. Erickson, Gary M., 2012. "Transfer pricing in a dynamic marketing-operations interface," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 216(2), pages 326-333.
    10. Chou, Yon-Chun & Huang, Hsing-Yi & Jahn, John & Kuo, Chien-Hung, 2010. "A framework of economic analysis for tapered technology-manufacturing alliances," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(2), pages 249-261, October.
    11. Kristianto, Yohanes & Gunasekaran, Angappa & Helo, Petri, 2017. "Building the “Triple R” in global manufacturing," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 183(PC), pages 607-619.
    12. Changwen Li & Bin Cao & Yong-Wu Zhou & T. C. Edwin Cheng, 2023. "Pricing, coalition stability, and profit allocation in the pull assembly supply chains under competition," OR Spectrum: Quantitative Approaches in Management, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research e.V., vol. 45(3), pages 977-1011, September.
    13. Julio B. Clempner & Alexander S. Poznyak, 2019. "Solving Transfer Pricing Involving Collaborative and Non-cooperative Equilibria in Nash and Stackelberg Games: Centralized–Decentralized Decision Making," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 54(2), pages 477-505, August.
    14. Clempner, Julio B., 2020. "Penalizing passenger’s transfer time in computing airlines revenue," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    15. Feess, Eberhard & Thun, Jörn-Henrik, 2014. "Surplus division and investment incentives in supply chains: A biform-game analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 234(3), pages 763-773.
    16. Ata Allah Taleizadeh & Mahsa Noori-daryan, 2016. "Pricing, inventory and production policies in a supply chain of pharmacological products with rework process: a game theoretic approach," Operational Research, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 89-115, April.
    17. Wu, Qiong & Ren, Hongbo & Gao, Weijun & Ren, Jianxing & Lao, Changshi, 2017. "Profit allocation analysis among the distributed energy network participants based on Game-theory," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 783-794.
    18. Matsui, Kenji, 2014. "Gray-market trade with product information service in global supply chains," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(PB), pages 351-361.
    19. Kumar, Satish & Pandey, Neeraj & Lim, Weng Marc & Chatterjee, Akash Nil & Pandey, Nitesh, 2021. "What do we know about transfer pricing? Insights from bibliometric analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 275-287.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Erickson, Gary M., 2012. "Transfer pricing in a dynamic marketing-operations interface," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 216(2), pages 326-333.
    2. Cecchini, Mark & Leitch, Robert & Strobel, Caroline, 2013. "Multinational transfer pricing: A transaction cost and resource based view," Journal of Accounting Literature, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 31-48.
    3. Liu, Guowei & Zhang, Jianxiong & Tang, Wansheng, 2015. "Strategic transfer pricing in a marketing–operations interface with quality level and advertising dependent goodwill," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 1-15.
    4. Changwen Li & Bin Cao & Yong-Wu Zhou & T. C. Edwin Cheng, 2023. "Pricing, coalition stability, and profit allocation in the pull assembly supply chains under competition," OR Spectrum: Quantitative Approaches in Management, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research e.V., vol. 45(3), pages 977-1011, September.
    5. repec:otg:wpaper:1403 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Eitan Goldman & Gary Gorton, 2000. "The Visible Hand, the Invisible Hand and Efficiency," NBER Working Papers 7587, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Scott Shane, 2001. "Organizational Incentives and Organizational Mortality," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(2), pages 136-160, April.
    8. Clemens Löffler & Thomas Pfeiffer & Ulf Schiller & Joachim Wagner, 2011. "Zentralisierung, Transferpreise und spezifische Investitionen: Ein selektiver Verfahrensvergleich," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 63(63), pages 1-33, January.
    9. Jung, Se-Youn & Huh, Woonghee Tim & Park, Kun Soo, 2022. "Impact of the arm’s length regulation on a supply chain with asymmetric retailers," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 300(3), pages 865-883.
    10. Mikko Ketokivi & Joseph T. Mahoney, 2020. "Transaction Cost Economics As a Theory of Supply Chain Efficiency," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(4), pages 1011-1031, April.
    11. Maloney, Michael T., 2017. "Alchian remembrances," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 561-582.
    12. Renato Matta, 2019. "Product costing in the strategic formation of a supply chain," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 272(1), pages 389-427, January.
    13. Matsui, Kenji, 2011. "Intrafirm trade, arm's-length transfer pricing rule, and coordination failure," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 212(3), pages 570-582, August.
    14. Vining, Aidan R. & Globerman, Steven, 1999. "Contracting-out health care services: a conceptual framework," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 77-96, January.
    15. Tran Quoc H. & Croson Rachel T. A. & Seldon Barry J., 2016. "Experimental Evidence on Transfer Pricing," International Journal of Management and Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, Collegium of World Economy, vol. 50(1), pages 27-48, June.
    16. Edward Johnson & Nicole Bastian Johnson & Thomas Pfeiffer, 2016. "Dual transfer pricing with internal and external trade," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 140-164, March.
    17. Lajili, Kaouthar & Mahoney, Joseph T., 2005. "Revisiting Agency and Transaction Costs Theory Predictions on Vertical Financial Ownership and Contracting: Electronic Integration as an Organizational Form Choice," Working Papers 05-0106, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    18. Ranjani Krishnan & Deepa Mani, 2020. "Uncertainty and Compensation Design in Strategic Interfirm Contracts†," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(1), pages 542-574, March.
    19. Baarda, James R., 2003. "Current Law & Economics Debates: Tools for Assessing Fundamental Cooperative Changes?," 2003 Annual Meeting, October 29 31802, NCERA-194 Research on Cooperatives.
    20. Soufiane Mezzourh & Walid A Nakara, 2009. "Governance and innovation : A Knowledge-based approach [La gouvernance de l'innovation : une approche par la connaissance]," Post-Print halshs-01955966, HAL.
    21. Peter-J. Jost, 2023. "Auditing versus monitoring and the role of commitment," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 28(2), pages 463-496, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:proeco:v:115:y:2008:i:2:p:542-552. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ijpe .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.