This workshop will discuss research based experiences of the changed conditions that farming systems face within the whole food chain. Therefore it will focus on the environmental, social and economic impacts of different food chains and the challenges and opportunities offered by diverse quality schemes and standard setting organisation at the world level as well as the certification tools imp...

This paper studies the e¤ects of international openness and contracting institutions on vertical integration. It …rst derives a number of predictions regarding the interactions between trade barriers, contracting costs, technology intensity, and the extent of vertical integration from a simple model with incomplete contracts. Then it investigates these predictions using a new dataset of over 14...

Coexistence of Strategic Vertical Separation and Integration by Jos Jansen This paper gives conditions under which vertical separation is chosen by some upstream firms, while vertical integration is chosen by others in the equilibrium of a symmetric model. A vertically separating firm trades off fixed contracting costs against the strategic benefit of writing a (two-part tariff, exclusive deale...

Over past decades industrial IT evolved separately in the field automation and office automation domains. Nowadays increasing complexity of manufacturing requiresmore advanced control, which can be achieved only by integrating these, formerly separated, areas. This article focuses on two aspects of such integration: communication-related, interconnecting networks of different kinds, and functio...

We construct a model where the equilibrium organization of firms changes as an economy approaches the world technology frontier. In vertically integrated firms, owners (managers) have to spend time both on production and innovation activities, and this creates managerial overload, and discourages innovation. Outsourcing of some production activities mitigates the managerial overload, but create...

Incentives to vertically integrate are studied in an industry where downstream firms are vertically differentiated. Vertical integration by one of the firms increases production costs for the rival. Increased production costs impact quality investment both by the integrated firm and the unintegrated rival. A firm, integrating first, always produces the high quality good and earns higher profits...

A vertically integrated monopoly is compared to a decentralised market arrangement where production is segmented between a Labour Managed Firm producing an input used by a pro...t maximiser manufacturer of a ...nal good. Surprisingly, in some circumstances the decentralised vertical arrangement is superior to the integrated one. JEL Classi...cation: L12, L13, L 32, P13

This article provides an economic explanation regarding why the share of U.S. pork raised on company-owned farms with hired management (integration) is increasing relative to production through independently owned-and-operated contract growers (contracting). The article develops a property rights model that shows how in certain circumstances production contracts do not transfer sufficient contr...

This paper analyzes the interactions between competitive (wholesale) spot, retail, and forward markets and vertical integration in electricity markets. We develop an equilibrium model with producers, retailers, and traders to study and quantify the impact of forward markets and vertical integration on prices, risk premia and retail market shares. We point out that forward hedging and vertical i...