Supply chain structure, debt financing and product market competition

This paper studies the interactions of capital structure and product market competition under two supply chain structures: a distribution structure where two competing retailers source from a common supplier and a parallel structure where each retailer sources from a dedicated supplier. The analyses demonstrate that if the retailers have access to external credits, they will borrow more (less), buy more (less), and incur a higher (lower) default probability under a parallel structure than under a distribution structure if the retailers sell substitutes (complements). The retailers' leverage improves the profit of their upstream suppliers and of the channel but improves their own profits only if they sell complements. If they sell substitutes, borrowing makes them worse off, leading to the prisoner's dilemma phenomenon. If only one retailer has access to external credit, then it will enjoy a leadership premium (loss) if the retailers sell substitutes (complements), and this effect trickles up to the upstream supplier of the leveraged retailer under the parallel structure. Thus, the dedicated suppliers will abet the leveraged retailers to compete more aggressively than unleveraged ones. However, the common supplier is independent of their downstream customer's capital structure. These results reveal that the impacts of external credit on the supply chain profitability depend on the stages the supply chain members are in, the degree of product differentiation, the supply chain structure, the uncertainty of demand, and whether the competitor also has access to external credits.