Vertical Ownership and Export Performance: Firm‐Level Evidence from the Food Industry
研究了食品企业与中间商之间的所有权安排如何提升出口绩效，发现前向收购能降低价格和分销成本，但会导致市场份额从低生产率企业向高生产率企业重新分配。
This article examines whether ownership arrangements between food firms and intermediaries improve the export performance of the former. We develop a theoretical model of trade with vertically‐linked industries whereby upstream manufacturers compete in export markets and may decide to acquire ownership stakes in an intermediary. The model highlights how more productive firms succeed in managing the double marginalization problem and in reducing the costs of exporting through forward acquisition. The predictions from the model are tested using firm‐level data on the French food industry. The results demonstrate that acquiring an intermediary lowers prices and distribution costs, and reveal that the benefits from forward acquisitions can be quite large. Conversely, we find that vertical ownership creates a market externality among manufacturers due to the reallocation of market shares from small firms to large firms, thereby forcing some low‐productivity firms to exit foreign markets.