Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
分销渠道中的讨价还价与合同形式：上架费为何产生而线性合同为何持续存在？
Bargaining and Contract Forms in Distribution Channels: Why Do Slotting Fees Arise and Linear Contracts Persist?
摘要
Two empirical patterns emerge in business-to-business settings, particularly in retail distribution channels such as grocery markets. First, linear contracts are widely observed alongside nonlinear contracts with fixed payments, despite the claimed efficiency advantages of the latter. Second, when fixed payments arise, they often flow from suppliers to retailers (slotting fees) rather than the reverse. We develop and analyze a model of multilateral bargaining in which a supplier negotiates separately with competing retailers to explain these patterns. The key mechanism is a trade-off between two distortions: under linear contracts, wholesale prices reflect bargaining power and can be either above or below the channel-profit-maximizing level, whereas under two-part tariffs, wholesale prices are set to maximize bilateral surplus independently of bargaining power but are systematically too low from an overall channel perspective because of rent shifting across relationships. As a result, neither contractual form uniformly dominates; instead, relative performance depends on how bargaining shapes gains from trade across firms. When bargaining leads to slotting fees, two-part tariffs yield higher channel profits than linear contracts, whereas when it would imply payments from retailers to suppliers, linear contracts may perform better. These findings offer a unified explanation for the persistence of linear contracts alongside two-part tariffs, the direction of fixed payments, and the conditions under which each contractual form is likely to arise. This paper was accepted by Miguel Villas-Boas, marketing. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2025.03426 .
中文摘要
在企业对企业环境中，尤其是杂货市场等零售分销渠道中，呈现出两个经验规律。第一，尽管非线性契约（含固定支付）被认为具有效率优势，线性契约仍与非线性契约广泛并存。第二，当固定支付出现时，其方向往往是从供应商流向零售商（进场费），而非相反。我们构建并分析了一个多边讨价还价模型，其中供应商与相互竞争的零售商分别谈判，以解释这些规律。关键机制在于两种扭曲之间的权衡：在线性契约下，批发价格反映谈判力，可能高于或低于渠道利润最大化水平；而在两部定价下，批发价格被设定为独立于谈判力以最大化双边剩余，但从整体渠道视角看，由于关系间的租金转移，批发价格系统性地过低。因此，没有一种契约形式 uniformly 占优；相反，相对表现取决于讨价还价如何塑造企业间的贸易收益。当讨价还价导致进场费时，两部定价比线性契约带来更高的渠道利润；而当讨价还价意味着零售商向供应商支付时，线性契约可能表现更好。这些发现为线性契约与两部定价并存、固定支付的方向以及每种契约形式可能出现的条件提供了统一解释。本文由营销学编辑Miguel Villas-Boas接收。补充材料：在线附录见https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2025.03426。