演講者簡介 : 王平先生為Ph.D. in Economics，University of Rochester (1987)。現為Washington University in St. Louis 經濟系講座教授，亦為本院院士，目前於本所訪問中。其主要研究領域為Economic Theory、Growth & Development、Health and Spatial Economics、Monetary Economics 、Macroeconomics。
演講摘要 : We construct a unified framework to study under what conditions one of the three frequently observed organizational structures of international middle-product production may arise in equilibrium: (i) separation of upstream and downstream firms with middle-product trade, (ii) vertical integration of upstream and downstream firms, and (iii) global sourcing with upstream firms internalizing design and marketing tasks while only outsourcing the final good production to subcontractors. We examine how conventional comparative advantage (search, communication, trade and labor diversification costs) and the concern of the product-defect risk arising from outsourcing jointly determine the organization of production and trade. We show that the potential availability of one organizational structure can change the trade-off of the other two structures, thereby making simple pairwise comparison invalid. In particular, we characterize the scenario of a profitable spinoff (downstream manufacturing) following a cross-border merger (integration of designing and marketing) such that integration and spinoff can coexist within one firm’s boundary. Moreover, we find that an equilibrium organizational structure may be suboptimal, as a result of conflicting effects on firm’s payoffs and consumer’s surplus. Furthermore, we calibrate various economies and illustrate why different organizational structures may be more frequently observed in different economic environments.
