IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecl/stabus/1825r.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

External and Internal Pricing in Multidivisional Firms

Author

Listed:
  • Baldenius, Tim

    (Columbia U)

  • Reichelstein, Stefan J.

    (Stanford U)

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 effcient 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 effcient outcomes by means of market-based transfer pricing unless the external market for the component is suffciently large relative to the internal market.

Suggested Citation

  • Baldenius, Tim & Reichelstein, Stefan J., 2004. "External and Internal Pricing in Multidivisional Firms," Research Papers 1825r, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecl:stabus:1825r
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://gsbapps.stanford.edu/researchpapers/library/RP1825R.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Jack Hirshleifer, 1956. "On the Economics of Transfer Pricing," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29, pages 172-172.
    3. Ilya Segal & Michael D. Whinston, 2000. "Exclusive Contracts and Protection of Investments," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 31(4), pages 603-633, Winter.
    4. Vaysman, Igor, 1998. "A model of negotiated transfer pricing," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 349-384, June.
    5. Alfred Wagenhofer, 1994. "Transfer pricing under asymmetric information," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(1), pages 71-103.
    6. Susan C Borkowski, 1999. "International Managerial Performance Evaluation: A Five Country Comparison," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 30(3), pages 533-555, September.
    7. M. Harris & C. H. Kriebel & A. Raviv, 1982. "Asymmetric Information, Incentives and Intrafirm Resource Allocation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(6), pages 604-620, June.
    8. Christensen, J & Demski, JS, 1998. "Profit allocation under ancillary trade," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(1), pages 71-89.
    9. 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.
    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Edward Johnson & Nicole Bastian Johnson & Thomas Pfeiffer, 2016. "Dual transfer pricing with internal and external trade," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 140-164, March.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Eric John Slof, 1999. "Transfer prices and incentive contracts in vertically-integrated divisionalized companies," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(2), pages 265-286.
    8. Feng, Felix Zhiyu & Westerfield, Mark M., 2021. "Dynamic resource allocation with hidden volatility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 560-581.
    9. Claus-Jochen Haake & Jan Thomas Martini, 2013. "Negotiating Transfer Prices," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 657-680, July.
    10. Sonja Brangewitz & Claus-Jochen Haake, 2013. "Cooperative Transfer Price Negotiations under Incomplete Information," Working Papers CIE 64, Paderborn University, CIE Center for International Economics.
    11. Amin H. Amershi & Peter Cheng, 1990. "Intrafirm resource allocation: The economics of transfer pricing and cost allocations in accounting," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 7(1), pages 61-99, September.
    12. Ulf Schiller, 1999. "Information management and transfer pricing," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(4), pages 655-673.
    13. J.S. Jordan, 1990. "Accounting†based divisional performance measurement: Incentives for profit maximization," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 6(2), pages 903-921, March.
    14. 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.
    15. 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.
    16. Diaw, K., 2003. "Cost Allocation as a Coordination Mechanism," Discussion Paper 2003-128, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    17. Alexis H. Kunz & Thomas Pfeiffer, 2001. "Kapitalmarktorientierte Unternehmenspublizität und der Informationsverbund zwischen in- und externem Rechnungswesen," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 53(5), pages 500-530, August.
    18. Stanley Baiman & Paul Fischer & Madhav V. Rajan & Richard Saouma, 2007. "Resource Allocation Auctions within Firms," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(5), pages 915-946, December.
    19. 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.
    20. 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.

    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:ecl:stabus:1825r. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/gsstaus.html .

    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.