IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eti/dpaper/16001.html

Intra-Firm Linkages in Multi-Segment Firms: Evidence from the Japanese manufacturing sector

Author

Listed:
  • Toshihiro OKUBO
  • Kirill BORUSYAK

Abstract

Are diversified firms mere collections of independent assets, or is there anything that glues together different businesses? We explore this question by looking at segment level growth of multi-segment (i.e., producing in several 6-digit industries at the same time) manufacturing firms in Japan. We find substantial co-movement between such segments and show that it can be driven by plant-wide but not firm-wide shocks. Our findings suggest that inputs that are shared firm-wide, such as brand and organizational routines, are not too important for production.

Suggested Citation

  • Toshihiro OKUBO & Kirill BORUSYAK, 2016. "Intra-Firm Linkages in Multi-Segment Firms: Evidence from the Japanese manufacturing sector," Discussion papers 16001, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    • Handle: RePEc:eti:dpaper:16001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rieti.go.jp/jp/publications/dp/16e001.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lamont, Owen, 1997. "Cash Flow and Investment: Evidence from Internal Capital Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 83-109, March.
    2. Jörn Kleinert & Julien Martin & Farid Toubal, 2015. "The Few Leading the Many: Foreign Affiliates and Business Cycle Comovement," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 134-159, October.
    3. Andrew B. BERNARD & Toshihiro OKUBO, 2015. "Product Switching and the Business Cycle," Discussion papers 15103, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    4. Laura Alfaro & Andrew Charlton, 2009. "Intra-industry Foreign Direct Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 2096-2119, December.
    5. David J. Teece, 2003. "Towards an Economic Theory of the Multiproduct Firm," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Essays In Technology Management And Policy Selected Papers of David J Teece, chapter 15, pages 419-446, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. Hottman, Colin & Redding, Stephen & Weinstein, David E., 2014. "What is 'firm heterogeneity' in trade models? The role of quality, scope, markups and cost," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 60448, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Takeo Hoshi & Anil Kashyap & David Scharfstein, 1991. "Corporate Structure, Liquidity, and Investment: Evidence from Japanese Industrial Groups," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(1), pages 33-60.
    8. Robert E. Lucas Jr., 1978. "On the Size Distribution of Business Firms," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 9(2), pages 508-523, Autumn.
    9. Xavier Gabaix, 2011. "The Granular Origins of Aggregate Fluctuations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(3), pages 733-772, May.
    10. ANITA M. McGAHAN & MICHAEL E. PORTER, 1997. "How Much Does Industry Matter, Really?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(S1), pages 15-30, July.
    11. Hart, Oliver, 1995. "Firms, Contracts, and Financial Structure," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198288817.
    12. Marc J. Melitz, 2003. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1695-1725, November.
    13. Chevalier Judith, 2004. "What Do We Know About Cross-subsidization? Evidence from Merging Firms," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-29, April.
    14. Stein, Jeremy C, 1997. "Internal Capital Markets and the Competition for Corporate Resources," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 111-133, March.
    15. Javier Cravino & Andrei A. Levchenko, 2017. "Multinational Firms and International Business Cycle Transmission," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(2), pages 921-962.
    16. Andrew B. Bernard & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2011. "Multiproduct Firms and Trade Liberalization," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(3), pages 1271-1318.
    17. Brian S. Silverman, 1999. "Technological Resources and the Direction of Corporate Diversification: Toward an Integration of the Resource-Based View and Transaction Cost Economics," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(8), pages 1109-1124, August.
    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. Xiang Ding, 2023. "Industry Linkages from Joint Production," Working Papers 23-02, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.

    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. Xiang Ding, 2023. "Industry Linkages from Joint Production," Working Papers 23-02, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    2. Udupa, Gautham, 2024. "Multinational entry and exit, technology transfer, and international business cycles," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    3. Siraj, Ibrahim & Hassan, M. Kabir & Maroney, Neal, 2020. "Product demand sensitivity and the corporate diversification discount," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    4. Marcus Biermann & Kilian Huber, 2024. "Tracing the International Transmission of a Crisis through Multinational Firms," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 79(3), pages 1789-1829, June.
    5. Julian di Giovanni & Andrei A. Levchenko & Isabelle Mejean, 2024. "Foreign Shocks as Granular Fluctuations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 132(2), pages 391-433.
    6. Tweedle, Jesse, 2018. "Correlated shocks within firms," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 95-97.
    7. Ly, Kim Cuong & Liu, Hong & Opong, Kwaku, 2017. "Who acquires whom among stand-alone commercial banks and bank holding company affiliates?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 144-158.
    8. Esposito, Federico, 2022. "Demand risk and diversification through international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    9. Vojislav Maksimovic & Gordon Phillips, 2005. "The Industry Life Cycle and Acquisitions and Investment: Does Firm Organization Matter?," Working Papers 05-29, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    10. Tu, Yongmei & Liu, Jihong & Yu, Degan, 2025. "Business group finance company and member firms’ operational performance," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    11. An Yan, 2006. "Value of Conglomerates and Capital Market Conditions," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 35(4), pages 5-30, December.
    12. Patrick Bielstein & Mario Fischer & Christoph Kaserer, 2018. "The cost of capital effect of M&A transactions: Disentangling coinsurance from the diversification discount," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 24(4), pages 650-679, September.
    13. Villalonga, Belen, 2000. "Does Diversification Cause the “Diversification Discount”?," University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management qt40v212gm, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.
    14. Glaser, Markus & Müller, Sebastian, 2006. "Der Diversification Discount in Deutschland: Existiert ein Bewertungsabschlag für diversifizierte Unternehmen?," Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications 06-13, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim;Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim.
    15. Delis, Manthos D. & Iosifidi, Maria & Kazakis, Pantelis & Ongena, Steven & Tsionas, Mike G., 2022. "Management practices and M&A success," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    16. Lee, Kyeong Hun & Mauer, David C. & Xu, Emma Qianying, 2018. "Human capital relatedness and mergers and acquisitions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(1), pages 111-135.
    17. Dietrich, Diemo & Jindra, Björn, 2010. "Corporate governance in the multinational enterprise: A financial contracting perspective," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 446-456, October.
    18. Ekkayokkaya, Manapol & Paudyal, Krishna, 2015. "A trade-off in corporate diversification," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 275-292.
    19. Vojislav Maksimovic & Gordon Phillips, 2002. "Do Conglomerate Firms Allocate Resources Inefficiently Across Industries? Theory and Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(2), pages 721-767, April.
    20. Karabay, Bilgehan, 2022. "A new dimension in global value chains: Control vs. delegation in input procurement," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:eti:dpaper:16001. 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: TANIMOTO, Toko (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rietijp.html .

    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.