IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/joares/v44y2006i1p1-28.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

External and Internal Pricing in Multidivisional Firms

Author

Listed:
  • TIM BALDENIUS
  • STEFAN REICHELSTEIN

Abstract

Multidivisional firms frequently rely on external market prices in order to value internal transactions across profit centers. This paper examines market‐based transfer pricing when an upstream division has monopoly power in selling a proprietary component both to a downstream division within the same firm and to external customers. When internal transfers are valued at the prevailing market price, the resulting transactions are distorted by double marginalization. The imposition of intracompany discounts will always improve overall firm profits provided the supplying division is capacity constrained. Under certain conditions it is then possible to design discount rules so that the resulting prices and sales quantities are efficient from the corporate perspective. In contrast, the impact of intracompany discounts remains ambiguous when the capacity of the selling division is essentially unlimited. It is then generally impossible to achieve fully efficient outcomes by means of market‐based transfer pricing unless the external market for the component is sufficiently large relative to the internal market.

Suggested Citation

  • Tim Baldenius & Stefan Reichelstein, 2006. "External and Internal Pricing in Multidivisional Firms," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(1), pages 1-28, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:joares:v:44:y:2006:i:1:p:1-28
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-679X.2006.00191.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-679X.2006.00191.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1475-679X.2006.00191.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Charles E. Hyde & Chongwoo Choe, 2005. "Keeping Two Sets of Books: The Relationship Between Tax and Incentive Transfer Prices," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(1), pages 165-186, March.
    2. Borenstein, Severin, 1996. "Settling for Coupons: Discount Contracts as Compensation and Punishment in Antitrust Lawsuits," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(2), pages 379-404, October.
    3. Jack Hirshleifer, 1956. "On the Economics of Transfer Pricing," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29, pages 172-172.
    4. V. G. Narayanan & Michael Smith, 2000. "Impact of Competition and Taxes on Responsibility Center Organization and Transfer Prices," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(3), pages 497-529, September.
    5. Jean-Jacques Laffont & Jean Tirole, 1993. "A Theory of Incentives in Procurement and Regulation," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262121743, December.
    6. Vaysman, Igor, 1998. "A model of negotiated transfer pricing," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 349-384, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Baldenius, Tim & Reichelstein, Stefan J., 2004. "External and Internal Pricing in Multidivisional Firms," Research Papers 1825r, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    2. Madhav V. Rajan & Stefan Reichelstein, 2004. "ANNIVERSARY ARTICLE: A Perspective on ÜAsymmetric Information, Incentives and Intrafirm Resource AllocationÝ," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(12), pages 1615-1623, December.
    3. Dikolli, Shane S. & Vaysman, Igor, 2006. "Information technology, organizational design, and transfer pricing," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1-2), pages 201-234, April.
    4. Lemus, Ana B. & Moreno, Diego, 2020. "Strategic incentives for keeping one set of books under the Arm’s Length Principle," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 78-90.
    5. Feng, Felix Zhiyu & Westerfield, Mark M., 2021. "Dynamic resource allocation with hidden volatility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 560-581.
    6. Rainer Niemann & Mariana Sailer, 2023. "Is analytical tax research alive and kicking? Insights from 2000 until 2022," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 93(6), pages 1149-1212, August.
    7. Hamamura, Jumpei, 2018. "Impact of a direct channel on the choice of absorption versus direct costing using cost-based transfer price," MPRA Paper 92643, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 10 Mar 2019.
    8. Peter C. Dawson & Stephen M. Miller, 2009. "International Transfer Pricing for Goods and Intangible Asset Licenses in a Decentralized Multinational Corporation: Review and Extensions," Working Papers 0901, University of Nevada, Las Vegas , Department of Economics.
    9. Kopel, Michael & Löffler, Clemens, 2023. "Tax differences and international location strategies," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 256(C).
    10. Bodo Knoll & Nadine Riedel, 2015. "Transfer Pricing Laws," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 12(04), pages 22-26, January.
    11. Diller, Markus & Lorenz, Johannes, 2017. "Do tax information exchange agreements curb transfer pricing-induced tax avoidance?," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Betriebswirtschaftliche Reihe B-29-17, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    12. Clemens Löffler & Thomas Pfeiffer & Ulf Schiller & Joachim Wagner, 2011. "Zentralisierung, Transferpreise und spezifische Investitionen: Ein selektiver Verfahrensvergleich," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 63(63), pages 1-33, January.
    13. Lemus Torres, Ana Belén & Moreno, Diego, 2011. "The non-neutrality of the arm's length principle with imperfect competition," UC3M Working papers. Economics we1134, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    14. Kenji Matsui, 2012. "Auditing internal transfer prices in multinationals under monopolistic competition," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(6), pages 800-818, December.
    15. Bodo Knoll & Nadine Riedel, 2015. "Transfer Pricing Laws," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 12(4), pages 22-26, 01.
    16. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Peter K. Schott, 2006. "Transfer Pricing by U.S.-Based Multinational Firms," NBER Working Papers 12493, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Barick Chung & Eric Rasmusen, 2008. "Price Discrimination between Retailers with and without Market Power," Working Papers 2008-14, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    18. Cecchini, Mark & Leitch, Robert & Strobel, Caroline, 2013. "Multinational transfer pricing: A transaction cost and resource based view," Journal of Accounting Literature, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 31-48.
    19. Hamamura, Jumpei, 2019. "Unobservable transfer price exceeds marginal cost when the manager is evaluated using a balanced scorecard," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 22-28.
    20. Savita A Sahay, 2018. "Tradeoffs Between Specific Investment and Optimal Resource Allocation: A Comparison of Different Transfer Pricing Policies," Accounting and Finance Research, Sciedu Press, vol. 7(3), pages 221-221, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:joares:v:44:y:2006:i:1:p:1-28. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0021-8456 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.