The speed of market penetration (i.e. diffusion) is an important summary measure of how well the market works for potential consumers of a new product. This paper identifies the structural features associated with rapid diffusion of mobile telephony. We use a sample of thirty countries over the...

Using a simple but general two-stage framework, this paper identifies the circumstances under which increasing competition leads to more cost-reducing investments. The framework can, for instance, capture increasing substitutability for different types of oligopoly models or changes from Cournot...

When are technological laggards more likely to try to catch up with leaders? We offer empirical evidence on firm-level data of plant investments in the TFT-LCD panel industry, where technological competition has been intense and dynamic. We find that the followers' level of technology has a...

We investigate the R&D portfolio choices of multiproduct firms. When a firm increases cost-reducing R&D investment in a given product, its rivals will modify their entire R&D portfolios by reducing R&D investments in that particular product and increasing R&D investments in other competing...

Although we have many tools to understand the effect of regulation on firm entry, we know little about the importance of actual regulation enforcement. For this purpose, this paper uses data from Spain's local television industry from 1995 through 2001, which provide a unique opportunity for...

We illustrate conditions under which a trade platform selling its own products alongside third-party sellers benefits or harms consumers. This benefits consumers by lowering prices in a suite of models: a gatekeeper platform facing a competitive fringe of sellers, when fringe sellers also have...

We examine the incentives of a monopolistic search engine, funded by advertising, to provide reliable search results. We distinguish two types of search results: sponsored and organic (not-paid-for). Organic results are most important in searches for online content, while sponsored results are...

This article examines how firms facing volatile input prices and holding some degree of market power in their product market link their risk management and their production or pricing strategies. This issue is relevant in many industries ranging from manufacturing to energy retailing, where...

We study firms' incentives to create switching costs using a four-period model consisting of two consecutive price-competing stages intervened by options to create switching costs early (before price competition) and late (during price competition). Acknowledging that many real/social switching...

Experimental evidence suggests that consumers are affected by reference prices and by relative price differences (“relative thinking”). A linear-city model of two retailers that sell two goods suggests how this consumer behavior affects firm strategy and market outcomes. A simple model...