Keiretsu and Relationship‐Specific Investment: A Barrier To Trade?
建立了一个日本企业集团内部非正式采购模型，分析关系专用性投资如何限制汽车零部件等中间品进口，即使外国成本更低也可能导致零进口，并可能被误认为贸易壁垒。
This article develops a model of informal procurement within Japanese keiretsu so as to consider effects on intermediate‐good imports, such as auto parts. Parts‐suppliers make relationship‐specific investments that benefit the automaker and prices are determined by bargaining after investment has been sunk. Although this investment raises efficiency, it limits the range of imports to less important parts, such as tailpipes, and it is possible that no parts are imported, despite lower foreign costs. Lack of information concerning investment rents combined with counterintuitive responses of imports to changes in output and costs could create unwarranted perceptions of a trade barrier.