Creating Holdup Through Vertical Integration: Fisher Body Revisited
基于历史档案，重新审视通用汽车1926年收购费雪车身的案例，发现敲竹杠并非收购原因，反而是收购后员工利用专用性人力资产敲竹杠，纵向一体化反而增加了企业脆弱性。
General Motors's (GM's) 1926 acquisition of Fisher Body has long served as a cornerstone of hold‐up arguments for vertical integration. This paper utilizes primary historical evidence to make three related claims. First, it shows that GM's initial investment in Fisher Body occurred primarily to gain access to the Fisher brothers' specialized human assets. Second, it shows that holdup was not the cause of GM's purchase of Fisher Body. Instead, the primary factors leading to vertical integration were GM management's fears over the Fisher brothers' impending departure, coupled with problems of financing new body plants. Finally, I show that while holdup was not an issue prior to integration, the Fisher brothers successfully held up GM after they became employees. Far from reducing opportunistic behavior, vertical integration increased GM's vulnerability to rent‐seeking behavior based in human asset specificity.