This paper compares the leader and follower payoff in a duopoly game, as they arise in sequential play, with the Nash payoff in simultaneous play. If the game is symmetric, has a unique symmetric Nash equilibrium, and players' payoffs are monotonic in the opponent's choice along their own best...

This paper analyzes differences in R&D spending and in the impact of R&D on productivity between German and UK firms. We confirm that German firms spend significantly larger amounts on R&D than their UK counterparts, even after controlling for firm size and industry effects. Using a dynamic...

This paper tests for the importance of cash flow on investment in fixed capital and R&D using firm-level panel data in two countries between 1985 and 1994. For German firms, cash flow is not informative in simple econometric models of fixed investment or R&D. In identical specifications for...

This paper centres around the question of ownership of firms and managerial competition and how these affect managers and employees’ incentives to invest in human capital. We argue that employees’ incentives in human capital investment are affected by both ownership and competition since...

At present the USA is - in per capita terms - the top greenhouse gas polluter among the world’s major economies. This is mirrored by the high energy intensity of all sectors of the US economy including manufacturing industries. A potential explanation for the higher energy intensity is lower...

The Wong-Viner Envelope Theorem on the equality of long-run and short-run marginal costs (LRMC and SRMC) is reformulated for convex but generally nondifferentiable cost functions. The marginal cost can be formalized as the multi-valued subdifferential a.k.a. the subgradient set but, in itself,...

This paper examines the frequency, pervasiveness and determinants of product switching among U.S. manufacturing firms. We find that two-thirds of firms alter their mix of five-digit SIC products every five years, that one-third of the increase in real U.S. manufacturing shipments between 1972...

Sunk costs for R&D are an important determinant of the level of innovation in the economy. In this paper I recover them using a Markov equilibrium framework. The contribution is twofold. First, a model of industry dynamics which accounts for selection into R&D, capital accumulation and...

Firms' decisions about which goods to produce are often made at a more disaggregate level than the data observed by empirical researchers. When products differ according to production technique or the way in which they enter demand, this data aggregation problem introduces a bias into standard...