Hold-up Problem Research Articles

European Commission’s Draft Regulation on SEPs: An IP Finance Assessment

Abstract The European Commission’s proposed Draft Regulation on Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) aims to overhaul the landscape of SEP licensing, addressing transparency deficits and fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms amidst the burgeoning Internet of Things (IoT) market. Emphasizing concerns over hold-up risks, the Draft Regulation introduces mandatory essentiality checks and structured FRAND determinations to mitigate opportunistic behaviours among SEP holders. However, the practical implementation of these measures poses challenges, including the accuracy of essentiality assessments and the potential for increased transaction costs. Moreover, the Draft Regulation fails to consider the financial dimension of technological innovation, namely the potential of SEPs to function as valuable financial assets. By undermining the economic value of SEPs in terms of enforcement and monetisation, there is a risk of watering down their potential to serve as valuable financial collateral and therefore to help innovators access debt financing.

Do the New Brazilian Agreements on Cooperation and Facilitation of Investment Promote Outward Foreign Direct Investment?

Abstract Brazil has recently adopted a novel approach in investment protection, the Agreements on Cooperation and Facilitation of Investment (ACFIs) which aim inter alia at promoting Brazil’s rising outward FDI. Motivated by claims that ACFIs will not achieve this goal – while otherwise tying the hands of policy makers – we use data over the years 2001 to 2022 and apply a Synthetic Control approach to study whether outward Foreign Direct Investment Stock of Brazil in Mexico is spurred by the ratification of the Mexico–Brazil ACFI. The concerns about ACFIs cannot be dismissed as our evidence shows that the ACFI does not promote outward foreign direct investment (FDI), at least for the post-treatment years used in our analysis. The absence of an impact is most likely driven by the omission of substantive provisions and, most notably, of Investor-State Dispute Settlement, which would address the hold-up problem in international investment.

Investment treaty reforms to prevent developing country regulatory chill from causing global warming

Developing countries have more than 1300 investment treaties with developed countries. Investment treaties are often alleged to constrain developing countries' climate policies. This paper examines four treaty reforms that are often suggested as remedies to such regulatory chill. It considers an investment treaty that protects a stranded developed country investment in a developing country. The reforms are compared with regard to whether they can induce the developing country to regulate the investment, and their political attractiveness. The reforms are shown to have features that seem to have gone unnoticed in the debate. Exclusion of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) may be ineffective due to a hold-up problem, and if effective requires unlawful regulation by the host country. A shortening of a sunset period applicable to unilateral withdrawal can postpone regulation. A reduction in the amount of stipulated compensation can induce the developing country to phase out the stranded investment, but will require a compensation payment from the developing country to the developed country investor. The reform with best potential to address stranded investment problems appears to be an increase in a carve-out from the compensation requirement for measures with sufficiently positive climate effect.

Inter-firm relationships and the special role of common banks

Using a novel dataset that combines information on customer-supplier trade relationships with information on firm-bank lending relationships, we show that common banks that lend to firms at both ends of a trade link grow and strengthen such trade relationships. To establish causality, we use bank mergers, which generate exogenous variations in the presence of common banks, and show that common bank relationships between customers and suppliers increase trade relationships by 49.6%. We find that the role of a common bank is greater when it is more informed and when supply chains suffer from larger information and holdup problems. We also document that suppliers with common banks face lower spillover risks from a distressed customer. Overall, our findings show the unique role of banks in driving inter-firm growth and investment by mitigating information and holdup problems, which arguably leads to greater economic growth.

Multiple banking relationships: the role of firm connectedness

Abstract This paper sheds light on the role of firm social connectedness in multiple banking relationships, controlling for other firm-level determinants. Using a large sample of Italian manufacturing firms, we develop novel text-based measures of firm connectedness and multiple banking relationships. We measure firm connectedness by exploiting information on the number of links that a non-financial firm has with any other non-financial firm through individuals who hold a position (such as shareholder, administrator, and technical or administrative employee) in both firms. The paper finds empirical evidence that firm connectedness is positively associated with the number of banks lending to the firm. This effect is stronger for younger, smaller, and more indebted firms, suggesting that firm connectedness favors the diffusion of soft information and ultimately their access to multiple sources of credit by reducing negotiation and transaction costs. Connectedness, on the other hand, does not seem to reduce firms’ incentives to increase the number of lenders in order to minimize hold-up risks.

What factors affect the emergence of patent thickets: the evidence from China

ABSTRACT A patent thicket is an overlapping web of patent rights that makes the firms willing to commercialise new technologies have to obtain licenses from multiple holders. Patent thickets will increase transaction costs due to complements and hold-up problems, consequently impeding technological innovation. However, what factors may affect the formation of the patent thickets is still an open question. This paper explores the causal factors of patent thickets based on 69 telecommunication equipment firms in China between 2008 and 2019. By adopting the random-effects panel Tobit model, the paper finds that at least three factors facilitate the formation of patent thickets: patent portfolio races, technological complexity, and technological cumulativeness. Notably, the open patent strategy and invention strategy negatively moderate technological cumulativeness and patent thickets. The paper empirically studies what factors affect the formation of patent thickets and theoretically explains the patent thickets’ formation mechanisms at the firm level. Companies’ managers should look objectively at the patent thickets in a complex technical field and may carry out the open patent strategy and invention strategy to navigate patent thickets.

Relationship-specific investments for up- and downstream firms and credit constraints

This paper argues that there exists a fundamental asymmetry between relationship-specific investments (RSI) made for downstream firms (customer-specific investments – CSI) and for upstream firms (supplier-specific investments – SSI). Both types of RSI can create a hold-up problem, but everything else equal, suppliers have higher bargaining power, rendering hold-ups by suppliers more dangerous than hold-ups by customers. Using unique data on Vietnamese SMEs that allow for a clean separation between CSI and SSI, we demonstrate that this leads to less frequent SSI and that the few firms making SSI will be more risky and financially constrained. We discuss the implications of this finding for supply chain management and public policy destined to foster RSI.

Wages as signals of worker mobility

We analyze a model in which workers direct their search on and off the job and employer–worker match productivities are private information. Employers can commit neither to post contracts such that wages are a function of tenure nor to disregard counteroffers. In this context, potential employers who do not observe workers' productivity in their current matches use wages as a signal of workers' willingness to switch jobs. In turn, this implies that the wage contracts that employers post in the market for entry jobs—the jobs unemployed workers search for—not only direct job search but also signal future worker mobility. When the costs of creating entry jobs are sufficiently small, the unique equilibrium supports the efficient allocation under full information. When the costs of creating entry jobs are sufficiently large, the efficient equilibrium may break down because match‐specific risk gives rise to a holdup problem in the market for entry jobs. Then the unique equilibrium may fail to reveal match productivities in the market for entry jobs. The nonrevealing equilibrium features wage posting—pooling wage contracts—as well as counteroffers, which eliminates the holdup problem at the cost of distorting worker mobility.

Ethics, Trust and the Holdup Problem in it Outsourcing

Ethics, Trust and the Holdup Problem in it Outsourcing

Banking on Deposit Relationships: Implications for Hold-Up Problems in the Loan Market

Banking on Deposit Relationships: Implications for Hold-Up Problems in the Loan Market

Group membership modulates the hold-up problem: an event-related potentials andoscillations study.

This paper investigates the neural mechanism that underlies the effect of group identity on hold-up problems. The behavioral results indicated that the investment rate among members of the in-group was significantly higher than that of the out-group. In comparison to the NoChat treatment, the Chat treatment resulted in significantly lower offers for both in-group and out-group members. The event-related potentials (ERP) results demonstrated the presence of a distinct N2 component in the frontal midline of the brain when investment decisions were made for both in-group and out-group members. During the offer decision-making stage, the P3 peak amplitude was significantly larger when interacting with in-group members compared to the out-group members. The event-related potentials oscillations (ERO) results indicated that when investment decisions were made for in-group members in the NoChat treatment, the beta band (18-28 Hz, 250-350 ms) power was more pronounced than when decisions were made for out-group members. In the NoChat treatment, offer decisions for in-group members yielded a more pronounced difference in beta band (15-20 Hz, 200-300 ms) power when compared to out-group members. Evidence from this study suggests that group identity can reduce the hold-up problem and corroborates the neural basis of group identity.

RELATIONAL TRADE NETWORKS

AbstractThis paper argues that in platform-based digitalisation of international trade processes, the use of blockchain instead of a central database system does not by itself adequately address the platform provider’s potential to engage in opportunistic behaviour. Digital transformation of international trade is, thus, constrained by hold-up problems. This requires embedding governance mechanisms in platform rulebooks designed to establish trust and commonality of interests. The article proposes a governance mechanism to promote widespread digital adoption through contract design choices based on guiding principles that can establish legally enforceable behavioural standards which align with the relational characteristics of digital trade networks.

Corporate social responsibility in the global value chain: A bargaining perspective

Breaches of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in global value chains (GVCs) pose a managerial challenge for multinational enterprises (MNEs) and threaten both their reputations and global sustainability. While an MNE-centric perspective on these issues has dominated existing international business research, we show that a dynamic view of bargaining among actors in the GVC can yield novel insights. We draw on coalitional game theory and develop a model where an MNE collaborates, monitors, and negotiates prices with a supplier whose CSR breaches may be revealed by the MNE, external agents, or remain hidden. Our model illustrates how MNEs may face a hold-up problem when irresponsible actions by suppliers are made public, and the suppliers have the power to engage in opportunistic renegotiation. Interestingly, we show that greater monitoring by MNEs, if not combined with specific strategies, can have negative consequences by weakening the MNE’s bargaining position and, in some cases, even prompting more irresponsible actions by the suppliers. Our model advances international business research on GVC sustainability and has important implications for managers and researchers alike.

Managing financial expertise

We study credit markets in which lenders can invest in financial expertise to reduce the cost of acquiring information about underlying collateral. If the pledgeability of corporate income is low, information acquisition increases lending, but lenders reduce expertise acquisition because of the hold-up problem. By contrast, if the pledgeability is high, information acquisition reduces lending so that lenders can extract rents from firms by investing in financial expertise and creating fear of information acquisition. Optimal policy involves subsidizing investment in financial expertise when the pledgeability is low and taxing investment in financial expertise when the pledgeability is high.

Seventy Years of FDI Literature: Review, Comparison and Critique

Abstract International capital movement in the form of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) by multinational enterprises (MNEs) signifies a widely researched phenomenon in comprehensive review of the FDI literature. Its vastness makes it impossible to fathom its depth, as such the paper highlights what the author considers to be mainstream theories in the domain of empirical studies on FDI. This study critically reviews (FDI) literature over a period of 70 years from 1950 to 2020 to provide a theoretical lens for future research beyond the established models. The discussion covers the mode of FDI inflows, statistical methods applied, theoretical models, contributions to paradigms and empirical papers investigating FDI. Furthermore, the papers selected cover heterogenous geographical regions, while in certain papers FDI has been studied as a dependent variable in others as an independent one. The focus lies on the FDI and its resultant activities of MNEs in the form of subsidiaries to carry out market seeking, strategic asset-seeking and efficiency seeking activities. Though, most researchers have narrowed down to four determinants of FDI i.e., motives of MNEs for undertaking FDI, size of MNEs, entry modes into host country and investments sector recently, many works have applied formal theories to provide a framework for market failure such as holdup problems, non-fulfillment of contracts and related agency costs. It is concluded that FDI has evolved into a significant area of empirical investigation. Overall, the gaps and opportunities in existing literature are identified thereby directions for further research emerge.

Credit Ratings and the Hold-Up Problem in the Loan Market

This paper studies whether credit ratings can alleviate the hold-up problem in the loan market. We exploit a refinement of the rating information produced by a certifier that rates private bank-dependent firms in France on a vast scale. The refinement causes some firms to receive a positive rating surprise that is not due to an improvement in firm fundamentals. We show that affected firms become less reliant on lenders that have greater ability to extract informational rents. These firms receive greater and less expensive bank credit from new and less informed lenders and invest more. We deduce that credit ratings reduce the monopoly power of informed banks, helping firms to expand their access to bank credit. This paper was accepted by David Sraer, finance. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4779 .

Technological competition and patent strategy: Protecting innovation, preempting rivals and defending the freedom to operate

Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, we examine the effect of technological competition over a patent on the firm's choice of patenting strategy. We claim that technological competition makes the traditional strategy of protecting focal innovations from imitation less likely and increases the likelihood of a play strategy — i.e. using patents to avoid the risk of hold-up by other patent owners, or as a bargaining chip in litigation and cross-licensing. However, we claim also that technological competition over a target close to the firm's core technology should lead to use of a fence strategy i.e. to blocking the commercial endeavors of rivals and preempting substitute inventions. We find support for our hypotheses using data from a large-scale survey of European patent applications.

A conceptual model for FRAND royalty setting

Setting an industry-wide standard is crucial for the interoperability, compatibility, and efficiency of information and communication technologies. To minimize holdup problems, patent holders are often required to ex-ante commit to licensing their technologies under Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) terms. Yet, there is little consensus, in both courtrooms and industries, on the exact meaning of FRAND. We propose a new framework that enables a precise distinction: fairness in the distribution of royalty payments among patent users, and reasonableness in setting the size of the compensation to the patent holder, where both the size and the distribution of payments are determined in a non-discriminatory way that ensures similar firms are treated similarly.

Myopic capital market concerns and investment incentives in business alliances

We study a publicly traded firm that cares about its short-term stock market performance while collaborating with a privately owned firm in a business alliance. The firms each undertake a relation-specific investment and then bargain over the allocation of the joint surplus generated by the alliance. The public firm’s myopic market concerns affect both the total size of the surplus and how the firms divide the surplus. While the public firm always becomes more aggressive and obtains more of the surplus, the total size of the surplus may become larger or smaller, due to the effect of myopic market concerns on the firms’ investment incentives. We establish conditions under which the investment and the value of each firm increase or decrease with market concerns. The market concerns could mitigate or exacerbate the hold-up problem between the two firms and thus could either benefit or harm the whole business alliance. We also study two extensions with (i) the two investments being substitutes instead of complements and (ii) both firms being publicly listed. In both cases, the insights from our main model still hold.

Revenue-sharing and volume flexibility in the supply chain

We model capacity choice and utilization of a manufacturer selling products through a retailer under a revenue sharing contract. We derive the optimal revenue sharing contract which internalizes the impact on capacity, utilization choice and the final downstream price of the product and provide a valuation of the retailer and supplier under uncertainty in a multiperiod setting. In extensions of this framework, we analyze constraints on minimum delivered quantities and also build a finite-time numerical method that considers an abandonment option for the supplier and hold-up problems for the retailer, as well as the supplier's option to expand capacity. Our model predicts higher revenue sharing ratios charged by retailers when suppliers operate in more volatile upstream markets, when the product is a necessity rather than a luxury good and when retailers can impose minimum delivered quantities. On the contrary, we find that suppliers will be able to obtain a higher revenue share when operating in industries with high fixed costs and for contracts of shorter horizon since hold-up problems for retailers increase and the retailer has to provide more incentives to suppliers not to abandon operations. The option to expand capacity benefits more significantly the supplier compared to the retailer. Finally, we consider the decisions of a vertically integrated firm showing the gains from vertical integration and demonstrating that the optimum vertically coordinated production can be achieved in the decentralized multiperiod setup through a combination of a fee per product and revenue sharing.