IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/bushor/v51y2008i5p411-417.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Transfer pricing for aligning divisional and corporate decisions

Author

Listed:
  • Adams, Laurel
  • Drtina, Ralph

Abstract

Discussions about transfer pricing normally presume the firm's objective is to maximize profit while making the best use of existing capacity. This article differs by exploring the impact of transfer pricing on capital budget decisions. In decentralized firms, decision authority for investment is assigned to division managers whose capital budgets include revenues from internal transfers. When a selling division is under capacity, economic theory recommends a transfer price based on differential cost. Here the seller generates sufficient revenues to recoup operating costs, but not enough to recover capital costs. Consequently, division managers will reject some investments that otherwise would have increased corporate shareholder value. Market-based transfer pricing overcomes this conflict by allocating savings on inter-company transactions to the selling division. However, market transfer pricing may result in shortfalls to corporate profit. Nonetheless, we argue in favor of the use of transfer pricing on the presumption that long-term value creation takes precedence over short-term profit.

Suggested Citation

  • Adams, Laurel & Drtina, Ralph, 2008. "Transfer pricing for aligning divisional and corporate decisions," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 51(5), pages 411-417.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:51:y:2008:i:5:p:411-417
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007-6813(08)00049-9
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jack Hirshleifer, 1956. "On the Economics of Transfer Pricing," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29, pages 172-172.
    2. Isabelle Huault & V. Perret & S. Charreire-Petit, 2007. "Management," Post-Print halshs-00337676, HAL.
    3. Grossman, Sanford J & Hart, Oliver D, 1986. "The Costs and Benefits of Ownership: A Theory of Vertical and Lateral Integration," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 691-719, August.
    4. Holmstrom, Bengt & Tirole, Jean, 1991. "Transfer Pricing and Organizational Form," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(2), pages 201-228, Fall.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Liu, Guowei & Zhang, Jianxiong & Tang, Wansheng, 2015. "Strategic transfer pricing in a marketing–operations interface with quality level and advertising dependent goodwill," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 1-15.

    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. Eitan Goldman & Gary Gorton, 2000. "The Visible Hand, the Invisible Hand and Efficiency," NBER Working Papers 7587, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Tim Baldenius & Stefan Reichelstein, 1998. "Alternative Verfahren zur Bestimmung innerbetrieblicher Verrechnungspreise," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 236-259, March.
    3. Pfeiffer, Thomas & Wagner, Joachim, 2007. "Internal markets or hierachies: Transfer prices or budgets?," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 241-255.
    4. Schmid, Andreas, 2007. "Incentive Compatibility and Efficiency in the contractual Insurer-Provider Relationship: Economic Theory and practical Implications: The Case of North Carolina," MPRA Paper 23311, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2008.
    5. Christopher Hansman & Jonas Hjort & Gianmarco León-Ciliotta & Matthieu Teachout, 2020. "Vertical Integration, Supplier Behavior, and Quality Upgrading among Exporters," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(9), pages 3570-3625.
    6. Laura Alfaro & Nick Bloom & Paola Conconi & Harald Fadinger & Patrick Legros & Andrew F Newman & Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen, 2024. "Come Together: Firm Boundaries and Delegation," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 22(1), pages 34-72.
    7. Yohanes Eko Riyanto, 2000. "Delegation of Authority, Managerial Initiatives, and the Design of Divisional Structure," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1061, Econometric Society.
    8. Chong-En Bai & Chenggang Xu, 2001. "Ownership, Incentives and Monitoring," STICERD - Theoretical Economics Paper Series 413, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    9. Deffains, Bruno & Demougin, Dominique M., 2006. "Governance: Who controls matters," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2006-053, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    10. Paul Walker, 2010. "The (Non)Theory Of The Knowledge Firm," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 57(1), pages 1-32, February.
    11. Dan Li & Manuel Portugal Ferreira, 2008. "Internal and External Factors on Firms’ Transfer Pricing Decisions: Insights from Organization Studies," Notas Económicas, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra, issue 27, pages 23-38, June.
    12. Robert Gibbons & John Roberts, 2012. "The Handbook of Organizational Economics," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 9889.
    13. Ciabuschi, Francesco & Dellestrand, Henrik & Kappen, Philip, 2012. "The good, the bad, and the ugly: Technology transfer competence, rent-seeking, and bargaining power," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 664-674.
    14. Lumineau, Fabrice & Frechet, Marc & Puthod, Dominique, 2011. "An organizational learning perspective on contract design," MPRA Paper 38360, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Arnoud W.A. Boot & Anjolein Schmeits, 1996. "Market Discipline in Conglomerate Banks: Is an Internal Allocation of Cost of Capital Necessary as an Incentive Device?," Center for Financial Institutions Working Papers 96-39, Wharton School Center for Financial Institutions, University of Pennsylvania.
    16. 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.
    17. Christian A. Ruzzier, 2009. "Asset Specificity and Vertical Integration: Williamson’s Hypothesis Reconsidered," Harvard Business School Working Papers 09-119, Harvard Business School.
    18. Diaw, K., 2003. "Cost Allocation as a Coordination Mechanism," Discussion Paper 2003-128, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    19. Bornemann, Tobias, 2018. "Do transfer pricing rules distort R&D investment decisions?," arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research 233, arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre.
    20. 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.

    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:eee:bushor:v:51:y:2008:i:5:p:411-417. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor .

    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.