Misallocation in the Market for Inputs: Enforcement and the Organization of Production*
中文摘要
契约执行的力度决定了企业如何采购投入品和组织生产。利用印度制造业工厂的微观数据，我们表明，在契约执行较弱的邦，生产和采购决策似乎受到系统性扭曲。具体而言，我们记录到，在往往更依赖关系专用型中间投入品的行业中，位于法院更为拥堵的邦的工厂会将其支出从中间投入品转移出去，且生产的纵向跨度更大。为量化这些扭曲对总体生产率的影响，我们构建了一个模型，其中工厂有多种生产方式，每种方式使用不同的投入品组合。薄弱的契约执行加剧了使用需要定制化的投入品时产生的敲竹杠问题，从而同时扭曲了投入品使用的集约边际和广延边际。生产的均衡组织与投入产出关联的网络结构，由生产者同时进行的成本最小化决策内生决定。我们利用生产者成本份额一阶矩的跨邦差异，识别出支配契约执行摩擦的结构参数。一系列反事实分析表明，契约执行摩擦对总体生产率的降低幅度达到了宏观尺度上不容忽视的程度。
Abstract
Abstract The strength of contract enforcement determines how firms source inputs and organize production. Using microdata on Indian manufacturing plants, we show that production and sourcing decisions appear systematically distorted in states with weaker enforcement. Specifically, we document that in industries that tend to rely more heavily on relationship-specific intermediate inputs, plants in states with more-congested courts shift their expenditures away from intermediate inputs and have a greater vertical span of production. To quantify the effect of these distortions on aggregate productivity, we construct a model in which plants have several ways of producing, each with different bundles of inputs. Weak enforcement exacerbates a holdup problem that arises when using inputs that require customization, distorting both the intensive and extensive margins of input use. The equilibrium organization of production and the network structure of input-output linkages arise endogenously from the producers’ simultaneous cost-minimization decisions. We identify the structural parameters that govern enforcement frictions from cross-state variation in the first moments of producers’ cost shares. A set of counterfactuals show that enforcement frictions lower aggregate productivity to an extent that is relevant on the macro scale.