Investment timing and vertical relationships

•Upstream mark-ups of key equipment delay irreversible investment•Because of vertical effects option value can decrease with volatility•An option or downpayment on the input is an effective vertical restraint•With downstream preemption the first investment is timed efficiently

We show that the standard analysis of vertical relationships transposes directly to investment dynamics. Thus, when a firm undertaking a project requires an outside supplier (e.g., an equipment manufacturer) to provide it with a discrete input to serve a growing but uncertain demand, and if the supplier has market power, investment occurs too late from an industry standpoint. The distortion in firm decisions is characterized by a Lerner-type index. Despite the underlying investment option, greater volatility can result in a lower value for both firms. We examine several contractual alternatives to induce efficient timing, a novel vertical restraint being for the upstream to sell a call option on the input. We also extend the model to allow for downstream duopoly. When downstream firms are engaged in a preemption race, the upstream firm sells the input to the first investor at a discount such that the race to preempt exactly offsets the vertical distortion, and this leader invests at the optimal time. These results are illustrated with a case study drawn from the pharmaceutical industry.