This paper analyzes the survival and growth of franchised chains using an unbalanced panel dataset that covers about 1000 of them each year from 1980 to 2001. We do this in part because franchised chains are an important segment of the retail sector, which has received relatively little...

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...

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...

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...