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The Role of Firm-Specific Capital in Vertical Mergers

A VERTICAL merger occurs when two firms that merge produce output or supply services that are used in successive stages of production. Many theories have sought to explain such mergers, and each explanation is probably correct for some subset of all vertical mergers.1 Often, these theories have diametrically opposed implications. There are, however, two common strands. First, the models assume that the merger will benefit the parties involved. In fact, the new method of organization should be superior to (or at least as good as) other (achievable) forms of organization. Second, these theories are, in general, not firm specific: that is, they propose reasons for why a firm might merge with a subset of the vertically linked industry but offer no explanation for how the subset should be (or is) chosen. Indeed, in most of the theories, the choice of merger partner