We consider the impact of history on the survival of a monopolist selling single units in discrete time periods, whose quality is learned slowly. If the seller learns her own quality at the same rate as customers, a sufficiently bad run of luck could induce her to stop selling. When she knows...

We present a micro-founded model of design that leads to simple demand rotations. We present simple sufficient conditions that determine when design should be extreme (fully standardized or fully tailored) or rather take intermediate positions.

We consider borrowers with the opportunity to raise funds from a competitive banking sector that shares information, and from an alternative hidden lender. The presence of the hidden lender restricts the contracts that can be obtained from the banking sector. In equilibrium some borrowers obtain...