The Maximum Capture problem (MAXCAP) is a decision model that addresses the issue of location in a competitive environment. This paper presents a new approach to determine which store’s attributes (other than distance) should be included in the new Market Capture Models and how they ought to...

A new direction of research in Competitive Location theory incorporates theories of Consumer Choice Behavior in its models. Following this direction, this paper studies the importance of consumer behavior with respect to distance or transportation costs in the optimality of locations obtained by...

To understand whether retailers should consider consumer returns when merchandising, we study how the optimal assortment of a price-taking retailer is influenced by its return policy. The retailer selects its assortment from an exogenous set of horizontally differentiated products. Consumers...

We analyze empirically the allocation of rights and monetary incentives in automobile franchise contracts. These contracts substantially restrict the decision rights of dealers and grant manufacturers extensive contractual completion and enforcement powers, converting the manufacturers, de...

This article illustrates how contracts are completed ex post in practice and, in so doing, indirectly suggests what the real function of contracts may be. Our evidence comes from the contracts between automobile manufacturers and their dealers in 23 dealership networks in Spain. Franchising...

In this paper we consider a location and pricing model for a retail firm that wants to enter a spatial market where a competitor firm is already operating as a monopoly with several outlets. The entering firms seeks to determine the optimal uniform mill price and its servers' locations that...

The paper explores an efficiency hypothesis regarding the contractual process between large retailers, such as Wal-Mart and Carrefour, and their suppliers. The empirical evidence presented supports the idea that large retailers play a quasi-judicial role, acting as "courts of first instance" in...

We study the effect of organizational choice and institutions on the performance of Spanish car dealerships. Using outlet-level data from 1994, we find that verticallyintegrated dealerships showed substantially lower labor productivity, higher labor costs and lower profitability than franchised...

We formulate a knowlegde--based model of direct investment through mergers and acquisitions. M&As are realized to create comparative advantages by exploiting international synergies and appropriating local technology spillovers requiring geographical proximity, but can also represent a strategic...

Two-stage game models of information acquisition in stochastic oligopolies require the unrealistic assumption that firms observe the precision of information chosen by their competitors before determining quantities. This paper analyzes secret information acquisition as a one-stage game....