We offer a new explanation as to why international trade is so volatile in response to economic shocks. Our approach combines the uncertainty shock idea of Bloom (2009) with a model of international trade, extending the idea to the open economy. Firms import intermediate inputs from home or...

In our model multiple innovators compete against each other by submitting investment proposals to an investor. The investor chooses the least expensive proposal and when to invest in it. Innovators have to provide costly effort and they learn privately the cost of investing. Multiple efforts...

This Paper examines irreversible investment in a project with uncertain returns, when there is an advantage to being the first to invest, and externalities to investing when others also do so. Pre-emption decreases and may even eliminate the option values created by irreversibility and...

Empirical studies have found that takeover activity is positively related to the absolute size of industry-level shocks. In this paper we develop a dynamic framework to analyze the timing of takeover which explains this pattern. Takeover may create value either by exploiting synergies or through...

We show that time-to-build, which creates a lag between the decision to invest and production, is an important element of industry structure. We study a multi-period investment game where there is demand uncertainty. Allowing for time-to-build alters, non-monotonically, the classic trade-off...

Equity carve outs, the partial listing of a corporate subsidiary, appear to be transitory arrangements, usually dissolved within a few years by either a complete sale or a buy back. Why do firms perform expensive listings just to reverse them thereafter? We interpret carve outs as strategic...

Macroeconomic shocks and labour-market institutions jointly determine employment growth and economic performance. The effect of shocks depends on the nature of these institutions and the effect of institutional change depends on the macroeconomic environment. It follows that a given set of...

We investigate the timing and the valuation of strategic investment aimed at enhancing entry opportunities in related market segments. As demand is uncertain, entry options should be exercised at the optimal time, trading off the market share gain against the option to wait until more...

This Paper investigates the empirical relationship between uncertainty and investment dynamics. This is motivated by the real options literature, which suggests a weaker response of investment to demand shocks at higher levels of uncertainty, as firms place a greater value on the option to wait....