Strategic Trade Policy in the Presence of International Outsourcing in a Duopoly Model (original) (raw)

Outsourcing and Competition Policy

Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, 2011

We analyze optimal competition policy by a Competition Agency (CA) in a model with two countries, North and South, were a final good is produced by Northern oligopolistic firms using an input that can either be produced within the firm (vertical integration) or outsourced to Southern oligopolistic producers with lower labor costs (outsourcing). In the case where the final good is only consumed in the North, a CA in the South would optimally appropriate outsourcing rents through restrictions on the degree of competition among domestic firms. If the final good is consumed in both countries, we find that optimal competition policy in the South is marginally affected by the share of Southern consumption, leaving relatively important incentives to engage in rent-shifting. For a high enough share of Southern consumption, however, the interaction between the Northern and Southern CA is shown to be of the Prisoner’s Dilemma type, whereby the Nash equilibrium is Pareto-suboptimal and mutual cooperation on competition policy is globally desirable.

Trade liberalization and strategic outsourcing

Journal of International Economics, 2004

This paper develops a model of strategic outsourcing. With trade liberalization in the intermediate-product market, a domestic firm may choose to purchase a key intermediate good from a more efficient foreign producer, who also competes with the domestic firm for a final good. This has a strategic effect on competition. Unlike the outsourcing motivated by cost saving, the strategic outsourcing has a collusive effect that could raise the prices of both intermediate and final goods. Trade liberalization in the intermediate-good market has a very different effect compared with trade liberalization in the final-good market. D

Outsourcing versus FDI in oligopoly equilibrium

2008

We consider the make-or-buy decision of oligopolistic firms in an industry in which final good production requires specialised inputs. Factor price considerations dictate that firms acquire the intermediate abroad, by either producing it in a wholly owned subsidiary or outsourcing it to a supplier who must make a relationship specific investment. Firms’ internationalisation mode depends on cost and strategic considerations. Crucially, asymmetric equilibria emerge, with firms choosing different modes of internationalisation, even when they are ex-ante identical. With ex-ante asymmetries, lower cost producers have a stronger incentive to vertically integrate (FDI), while higher cost firms are more likely to outsource.

Incidence of an Outsourcing Tax on Intermediate Inputs

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

The paper uses a Hecksher-Ohlin-Samuelson type general equilibrium framework to consider the incidence of an outsourcing tax on an economy in which the production of a specific intermediate input has been fragmented and outsourced. If the outsourced sector provides a non-traded input, the outsourcing tax can have adverse impact on labor even if it is the most capital-intensive sector of the economy. Thus contrary to expectations, a tax on a capital-intensive sector actually hurts labor. In the case where the intermediate input is traded, the outsourcing tax closes down either the intermediate input producing sector, or the final good producing sector which uses the intermediate input.

Privatization and Optimum-Welfare in an International Cournot Duopoly

Managing global transitions, 2016

In this paper, we will analyse the relationship between privatization of a public firm and tax revenue for the domestic government in an international competition, with import tariffs. We consider a duopoly model where a domestic public firmand a foreign private firmcompete in the domesticmarket, asCournot players. Furthermore, the domestic government imposes a tariff to regulate an imported good, and may have a higher preference for tariff revenue than for social welfare. We compute the outputs at equilibrium and we show that privatization (i) will increase the profits of both domestic and foreign firms; (ii) will increase the tariff imposed to the imported good; and (iii) will decrease the domestic welfare. Furthermore, we demonstrate that a rise in the government’s preference for tariff revenues raises the social welfare in both mixed and private models.

The role of public infrastructure and subsidies for firm location and international outsourcing

European Economic Review, 2006

This paper presents a model in which final goods producers outsource intermediate input production. Intermediate inputs are differentiated and their production can be located at home or abroad. The model is used to examine competitive location policy in a (two-country) free trade area (FTA). It is shown that national public infrastructure investment has a positive effect on both the number of intermediate input producers and the return to the immobile factor in the home country. International outsourcing from home declines. Opposite effects are triggered in the partner country. In a welfare analysis we characterize national infrastructure policies that aim to maximize national income (net of tax costs) and compare the non-cooperative FTA-equilibrium with optimal policies from an integrated point of view. We show whether or not there is a need for policy coordination. Firm subsidies are discussed as an alternative to public infrastructure investment.

Firm-asymmetry and strategic outsourcing

International Review of Economics & Finance

In contrast to the conventional wisdom, we show that a final goods producer may outsource input production to an outside supplier even if the final goods producer possesses a superior inputproduction technology compared to the outside supplier. Such an outsourcing may reduce consumer surplus and social welfare. We also show that, in the presence of outsourcing, innovation by the firm doing outsourcing to reduce the cost of in-house input production and to reduce the input coefficient in the final goods production may have significantly different implications for the consumers and the society.

Government Outsourcing: Contracting with Natural Monopoly

This paper studies the effect of soft-budget constraints in a pure adverse selection model of monopoly regulation. We consider a government maximizing total surplus but incurring some cost of public funds à la Laffont Tirole (1993). We propose a regulatory setup in which firms are free to enter natural monopoly markets and to choose their price and output levels as in the laisser-faire. In addition, the government proposes ex-post contracts to the private firms. We show that this regulatory setup allows governments to avoid refunding money-loosing firms and that welfare is larger than under traditional regulation where governments commits to both investment and operation cash-flows.

Optimal Trade and Privatization Policies in an International Duopoly with Cost Asymmetry

The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, 2005

This paper examines optimal trade and privatization policies in a mixed duopoly in which a pubic home firm competes with a more efficient foreign firm. The home firm is a Cournot competitor or a Stackelberg leader. The home government chooses the degree of privatization and import tariff to maximize national welfare. The paper examines the policy effects on industry equilibrium with general demand and cost structures and shows that the optimal level of privatization depends crucially upon the strategic substitutability-complementarity assumption. It further shows that if both policies are used under linear demand and quadratic costs, the equilibrium prices, firms' outputs, welfare and tariff rates are the same under Cournot and Stackelberg competition, and price equals the home firm's marginal cost. Neither full nationalization nor full privatization is optimal under Cournot, but full nationalization is always optimal under Stackelberg competition. If only one policy is used, a reduction in government's ownership of the public firm under Cournot competition and constant marginal costs calls for a higher optimal tariff rate. This result does not carry over to the case of increasing marginal costs, although the optimal tariff is lower under full nationalization than under full privatization.