In this article we develop a model to analyze patent-protected R&D investment projects when there is (imperfect) competition in the development and marketing of the resulting product. The competitive interactions that occur substantially complicate the solution of the problem since the decision...

Roughly one-third of world trade is intrafirm trade. This paper starts by unveiling two systematic patterns in the volume of intrafirm trade. In a panel of industries, the share of intrafirm imports in total U.S. imports is significantly higher, the higher the capital intensity of the exporting...

The global pattern of foreign direct investment (FDI) is quite similar to the world trade pattern. In particular, intraindustry FDI between rich nations is almost as pervasive as intraindustry trade among rich nations. In the standard' MNC model (of Markusen, Venables, Brainard, and others), FDI...

We consider a version of the imperfect competition model of Butters (1977), Varian (1980) and Burdett and Judd (1983) in which sellers make an ex-ante investment in the quality of their variety of the product. Equilibrium exists, is unique and is efficient. In equilibrium, search frictions not...

We derive a small open economy (SOE) as the limit of an economy as the number or size of its trading partners goes to infinity and trade costs also go to infinity. We obtain this limit in the Armington, Eaton-Kortum, Krugman, and Melitz models. In all cases, the trade of the SOE with the foreign...

We develop a new approach to dealing with real options problems with uncertain maturity. This type of situation is typical for R&D investments and mine or oil exploration projects. These types of projects are characterized by significant on-going investment costs until completion. Since time to...

This paper provides a model of investment timing by managers in a decentralized firm in the presence of agency conflicts and information asymmetries. When investment decisions are delegated to managers, contracts must be designed to provide incentives for managers to both extend effort and...

We develop a real options model of R&D valuation, which takes into account the uncertainty in the quality of the research output, the time and cost to completion, and the market demand for the R&D output. The model is then applied to study the problem of pharmaceutical under-investment in R&D...

We show how the value of a real option depends on corporate income taxes and the option's "debt capacity," defined as the amount of debt supported or displaced by the option. The value of the underlying asset must be an adjusted present value (APV). The risk-free rate of interest must be...

The real options framework has been used extensively to analyze the timing of investment under uncertainty. While standard real options models assume that agents possess a constant rate of time preference, there is substantial evidence that agents are very impatient about choices in the...