In this paper, we develop a simple model of international outsourcing and apply it to processing trade in China. We observe China's processing exports broken down by who owns the plant and by who controls the inputs the plant processes. Multinational firms engaged in export processing in China tend to split factory ownership and input control with managers in China: the most common outcome is to have foreign factory ownership but Chinese control over input purchases. To account for this organizational arrangement, we appeal to a property-rights model of the firm. Multinational firms and the Chinese factory managers with whom they contract divide the surplus associated with export processing by Nash bargaining. Investments in input search, production, and marketing are partially relationship specific. In our benchmarks estimates, this relationship specificity is lowest in southern coastal provinces, where export markets are thickest, and highest in interior and northern provinces. The probability contracts are enforced has a similar pattern and is the lowest along the southern coast and the highest in the north.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
10198.
Length: Date of creation: Jan 2004 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10198
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Find related papers by JEL classification: F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Country and Industry Studies of Trade L23 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Organization of Production
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Dalia Marin & Thierry Verdier, 2004.
"Globalization and the Empowerment of Talent,"
Discussion Papers
1, SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
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Dalia Marin & Thierry Verdier, 2001.
"Power Inside the Firm and the Market: A General Equilibrium Approach,"
Discussion Papers
109, SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich, revised Apr 2006.
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