Interacting Supply Chain Distortions: The Pricing of Internal Transfers and External Procurement
研究企业在同时进行内部生产和外部采购时，转移定价对供应链的影响，发现高于边际成本的转移价格虽造成内部协调问题，但能降低外部供应商的定价，使分权管理对企业有利。
This paper examines the impact of distortions wrought by transfer pricing when a firm is engaged in both internal production and external procurement of inputs. In particular, we demonstrate that a firm can actually glean benefits from often-discussed transfer-pricing problems in dealing with an external supplier. Though transfer prices above marginal cost introduce inter-division coordination problems, they also introduce a lower willingness to pay to outside suppliers. Knowing that costly internal transfers will eat into demand, the supplier is more willing to set lower prices. Such supplier discounts can make decentralization worthwhile for the firm. This benefit of decentralization is shown to be robust to variations in both downstream and upstream competition.