We examine whether the effects of firm age and size on survival and growth found in studies of manufacturing firms 1- hold also in retailing, 2- are a reflection of underlying firm-specific efficiency, per models such as Jovanovic's (1982), or play a separate role from other firm characteristics...

We use a unique proprietary monthly panel data set on the operations of a large hotel firm to study the effect of vertical integration decisions on the pricing and performance (occupancy rate and RevPar) of individual hotels. Aggregate data patterns ndash; which managers pay most attention to...

The relational contracts literature suggests that a principal can improve contract self-enforceability by specifying initial requirements that increase the agent's ex-post rents. Initial requirements specified in hotel franchise agreements — size and quality-tier of hotel — offer a unique...

We study the performance of investments made at different points of an investment cycle. We use a large data set covering hotels in the U.S., with rich details on their location, characteristics and performance. We find that hotels built during hotel construction booms underperform their peers....

While there has been extensive research on the impact of minimum wages on employment and wages, there has been little on the impact on firm performance, prices, and quality. Exploiting the staggered changes in minimum wages in the US over 2000 to 2008 and using comprehensive data on the hotel...

Estimating how scale and scope affect the performance of multi-product firms has been a challenge. We argue that because franchised chains are fundamentally single-product entities, we can use data on franchised chains and their parents to clearly distinguish scale and scope, and assess their...

This paper analyzes the impact of FDI on domestic firm entry and firm size distributions in 245 industries in the Czech Republic during 1994 to 2000. We find that larger foreign presence stimulates the entry of domestic firms within the same industry indicating the existence of positive...

This paper analyzes the impact of foreign presence on growth and survival of domestic firms. I separate the two opposing effects of foreign presence: a negative "crowding out" and positive "technology spillovers" and further analyze whether the crowding out effect is dynamic, i.e. domestic firms...

Using data on franchised chains, which are the type of single-product entities emphasized in industry dynamics models, we show that age and size affect growth and survival even after controlling for chain characteristics and unobserved chain-specific efficiency. This implies that age and size...

In the standard durable-goods-quality model (e.g., Klein and Leffler, 1981; Shapiro, 1982, 1983), the prospect of repeat sales is often adequate to support the provision of high-quality durable goods even when quality is not observable at the time of purchase. We show that when durable goods require...