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Organizing the Global Value Chain

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  • Antràs, Pol
  • Chor, Davin

Abstract

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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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 9018.

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Date of creation: Jun 2012
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9018

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Keywords: contractual frictions; downstreamness; global value chain; intrafirm trade; property rights; Sequential production;

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  1. Antràs, Pol & Chor, Davin & Fally, Thibault & Hillberry, Russell, 2012. "Measuring the Upstreamness of Production and Trade Flows," CEPR Discussion Papers 8839, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  2. Andrei A. Levchenko, 2007. "Institutional Quality and International Trade," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 74(3), pages 791-819.
  3. Arnaud Costinot & Jonathan Vogel & Su Wang, 2011. "An Elementary Theory of Global Supply Chains," NBER Working Papers 16936, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Andrei A. Levchenko & Julian di Giovanni, 2009. "Putting the Parts Together: Trade, Vertical Linkages, and Business Cycle Comovement," IMF Working Papers 09/181, International Monetary Fund.
  5. Philipp Harms & Oliver Lorz & Dieter M. Urban, 2009. "Offshoring along the Production Chain," CESifo Working Paper Series 2564, CESifo Group Munich.
  6. Justin R. Pierce & Peter K. Schott, 2012. "A concordance between ten-digit U.S. Harmonized System codes and SIC/NAICS product classes and industries," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2012-15, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  7. Robert C. Feenstra & John Romalis & Peter K. Schott, 2002. "U.S. Imports, Exports, and Tariff Data, 1989-2001," NBER Working Papers 9387, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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