| Chinese animal husbandry entered the rapid development stage of industrialization earlier.The deepening of the division of production has formed huge economies of scale,making animal husbandry industry an important support point of the agricultural system.At the same time,the large-scale entry of industrial and commercial capital has become a common trend in the development of domestic and foreign animal husbandry industries,and major animal husbandry enterprises have rapidly expanded their scales and occupied the market in all aspects with the help of policy dividends and industrial structure adjustment.However,the growth of market capacity caused by the expansion of business scale promotes the continuous increase of transaction costs of enterprises,which makes the development of enterprises easy to fall into the dilemma of "market scale-transaction cost".On the one hand,the limited operating scale restricts the enterprises from obtaining economies of scale,on the other hand,the opportunistic behavior of market entities and the increase in transaction frequency will cause transaction costs and restrict the continuous increase of enterprises’ economies of scale after the expansion of the operating scale.How to effectively solve the contradiction between the expansion of animal husbandry business scale and the rising cost of market transactions? Based on the historical review of the development of Chinese animal husbandry industry chain and the investigation of the status quo of vertical integration,this study finds that with the entry of industrial and commercial capital and the deepening of the market division of labor in animal husbandry industry after the reform and opening up,the market capacity of the core links of Chinese animal husbandry industry chain continues to grow.There is a trend of gradual separation between the links.In order to reduce the rise of market risks and transaction costs under this trend,the management decisions of animal husbandry enterprises,especially listed leading enterprises,have begun to shift to vertical integration,and the degree of vertical integration has shown a trend of fluctuation and rising.It has been improved especially under the impact of environmental regulation around year2014.Does the economy of division of labor expressed by vertical integration help to solve the contradiction of “market scale-transaction cost” in animal husbandry enterprises?Therefore,this study attempts to give an economic explanation to this practical problem from the perspective of vertical integration.Vertical integration originates from the adjustment of enterprises’ business decisionmaking.Facing the deepening of capital and changes in market transaction costs,the adjustment strategy of business behavior of animal husbandry enterprises is gradually inclined to vertical integration.How does the deepening of industrial and commercial capital affect vertical integration? Will environmental regulation have an impact on the process of industrial and commercial capital integrating animal husbandry industry chain? What are the decision drivers for the selection of vertical integration mode of leading enterprises? What impact will the deepening of vertical integration have on enterprises’ business performance?To solve these series of questions require scientific and normative demonstrations and systematic and adequate explanations.In the context of the deepening of industrial and commercial capital,based on relevant economic theories and tools,this study builds a theoretical model of enterprise vertical integration decision-making,and analyzes and understands the theoretical logic and economic impact of industrial and commercial capital integrating animal husbandry industry chain.On this basis,using the listed companies’ financial statement of Chinese Stock Market & Accounting Research Database(CSMAR)and the interview and survey of major livestock enterprises in Jiangsu Province,combining empirical research and case analysis,the impact of industrial and commercial capital deepening on vertical integration of animal husbandry industry chain,the impact of environmental regulation on the integration of industrial and commercial capital in animal husbandry industry,the decision-making factors for the selection of vertical integration mode of animal husbandry enterprises,and the impact of vertical integration on the management performance of animal husbandry enterprises were deeply studied.This study comprehensively demonstrated the causes and consequences of vertical integration under the background of animal husbandry industrial and commercial capital deepening,and systematically explained the contradiction between the horizontal scale expansion of animal husbandry enterprises and the rise in market transaction costs.To provide scientific decisionmaking basis for the government to guide and promote industrial and commercial capital to enter animal husbandry in an orderly manner,and for animal husbandry enterprises to achieve sustainable improvement in business performance.The core conclusions are as follows:The deepening of industrial and commercial capital increases exogenous transaction costs by inducing animal husbandry enterprises to increase investment in dedicated assets,and reduces endogenous transaction costs by replacing labor factors with capital factors,thereby promoting vertical integration of animal husbandry industry chain.From the perspective of integration,the deepening of industrial and commercial capital has a greater role in promoting the forward integration of animal husbandry enterprises,indicating that domestic animal husbandry enterprises are more inclined to integrate product sales channels.The promotion of industrial and commercial capital deepening on vertical integration is more significant in the sample group of state-owned enterprises,and only promotes the forward integration of upstream feed processing enterprises and the backward integration of downstream slaughtering and processing enterprises,while both forward and backward integration of midstream livestock and poultry enterprises have been significantly promoted.The implementation of environmental regulation policies for animal husbandry industry,on the one hand,forms an industrial structure adjustment effect in the aquaculture link.Through the "breeding cost and benefit" and "market entry and exit" mechanism,it promotes a large number of small and scattered farmers to withdraw,and accelerates the industrial and commercial capital in the breeding link.On the other hand,it will cause the production layout transfer effect in the breeding process.By extending the distance between the main feed production areas,the designated slaughtering areas and the main livestock production areas,the transportation cost and loss of raw materials of breeding enterprises would be increased.From the perspective of the integration direction,the impact of environmental regulation has a greater role in promoting the forward integration of animal husbandry enterprises.Through the form of contract agriculture,each vertical integration mode of animal husbandry enterprises in the breeding process is a rational choice made by weighing external market transaction costs and internal production costs under given transaction attributes.There are different optimal contract modes for different production links or varieties.Due to the incompleteness of the contract,there is an adaptive adjustment process in the leading enterprises’ contract selection.The impact of the African Swine Fever epidemic or environmental regulation will reduce the efficiency of contract performance.Enterprises will adjust the original single contract model and transition to an intermediate contract or a hybrid contract model with more closely linked interests.This evolution process will also have differences in production links or varieties due to different asset specificity.Therefore,the optimization of the organizational form adopted by animal husbandry enterprises to cope with the impact of exogenous risks has also played a certain role in promoting vertical integration.Both vertical integration and market scale of animal husbandry enterprises have a significant inverted "U"-shaped relationship with their business performance.In the case of a high degree of vertical integration of animal husbandry enterprises,the horizontal expansion of animal husbandry enterprises will continue to improve their business performance;within a moderate range,the improvement of business performance brought about by integrating product sales channels is generally applicable to animal husbandry enterprises of different scales.However,the improvement of business performance brought by the integration of raw material supply channels only exists in large-scale animal husbandry enterprises.The two large-scale development strategies can not only promote each other at a moderate level,but also have a strong synergistic effect.These two strategies have a positive interactive effect on the management performance of animal husbandry enterprises.In conclusion,aiming to better use the leading enterprises of animal husbandry as the main carrier to promote the revitalization of rural industries and the high-quality development of animal husbandry industry.The relevant policy recommendations include the following three aspects: First,to give full play to the leading role of animal husbandry enterprises to build a regional whole industry chain development pattern.Second,to orderly guide industrial and commercial capital to choose appropriate methods and links to enter animal husbandry industry according to local conditions,so as to avoid blind duplication and promotion of agricultural industrialization models.The third is to actively implement the appropriate vertical integration strategy to promote the quality and efficiency of large-scale development of animal husbandry enterprises.Based on the reality of deepening of the division of labor in animal husbandry-related industries and the entry of industrial and commercial capital,this study in-depth study the obstacles and resistances of the large-scale development of animal husbandry enterprises from the perspective of transaction costs,and explain the "market size-transaction cost" contradiction of animal husbandry enterprises based on the division economic of labor expressed by vertical integration that cannot be explained by traditional scale economies theories,especially the decision-making of vertical integration of animal husbandry enterprises under the impact of exogenous risks.This study is carried out within the framework of transaction cost analysis of new institutional economics,and proposed that the essence of vertical integration of industrial chain is the evolution of social division of labor in the form of a market to the enterprise organizational division of labor in the form of integration,which provide a new interpretation for revealing the economic implications behind vertical integration behavior.It has important practical value for relevant government departments to guide and promote industrial and commercial capital to enter animal husbandry in an orderly manner,and to achieve sustainable improvement of enterprises’ business performance. |
PDF Full Text Request