Rigid Cost Structures as a Preemptive Strategy
研究企业是否通过提高成本刚性来采取激进的竞争姿态，发现面临进口关税削减带来的竞争威胁时，国内企业会主动增加成本刚性，这并非源于产能投资，而是劳动力和采购的长期承诺，且仅在能软化竞争的行业中有效，带来市场份额增长。
ABSTRACT We examine whether firms strategically increase cost rigidity to adopt an aggressive product market stance. Using large cuts in industry-level import tariff rates as a setting, we find that domestic firms respond to a looming competitive threat from foreign rivals by raising cost rigidity. This increase cannot plausibly be explained by investments to create physical excess capacity, suggesting firms enter cost commitments for labor and procurement instead. Additional tests corroborate the hypothesized preemptive intent. First, the increase in cost rigidity is concentrated in industries in which a firm’s aggressive market stance elicits a softening of competition. Second, it is only in these industries that firms with rigid cost structures experience market share gains around a large tariff cut. The latter effect is more pronounced the more reliably firms’ cost structures can be discerned from their financial statements. Overall, our study suggests that firms enter cost commitments as a preemptive strategy. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text. JEL Classifications: L22; M21; M40; M41.