Benefits of Collaboration in Capacity Investment and Allocation

Abstract

This paper studies capacity collaboration between two (potentially competing) firms. We explore the ways that the firms can collaborate by either building capacity together or sharing the existing capacity for production. We consider cases where the two firms' products are potential substitutes and also where the firms' products are independent. We find that a firm can benefit from collaboration even with its competitor. Moreover, the firms do not have to jointly make the production decisions to realize the benefits of collaboration. We consider a model where firms build capacity before demand is realized and make production decisions after they receive a demand signal. They can potentially collaborate in jointly building capacity and/or in exchanging capacity once they receive their demand signals. Interestingly, we find that having firms compete at the production stage can result in firms deciding to build less overall capacity than if they coordinated capacity investment and production. Also, we find that though collaboration in capacity investment is bene cial, collaboration in production using existing capacity is often more beneficial. The benefits of collaboration is largest when competition is more intense, demand is more variable and cost of investment is higher.