There appears to be an ambivalent dimension in innovation strategies: timing. When is an innovation ready for the market or when is the market ready for the innovation? This paper empirically investigates the determinants of a firm?s decision to become a first mover or a follower in innovation...

The theoretical discussion concerning the question whether the incumbent or the (potential) entrant invests more into R&D has attracted considerable interest. This paper reports the results of an empirical study on this question using data of about 3500 German firms over the years 1992 to 1995....

In 2005, the President of the Bank of Italy blocked the cross-border acquisition of two Italian banks for ?prudential reasons and formal errors?. Following these events, the EU Commission brought actions against Italy for infringement of the principle of the free movement of capital. Although...

In this paper we analyze the incentive of the German postal service (Deutsche Post AG, DPAG) to increase quality in the light of the upcoming liberalization of the postal services market. Currently, there would be no incentive for DPAG to increase its quality if the market were not to be...

Barriers to entry are regarded as major impediments to the working of markets. Entry must not necessarily actually take place - the perceived threat of entry may encourage incumbent firms to behave as if they are in a competitive market, even if they are not. We present empirical evidence on...

We develop a simple model of competition for the market that shows that, contrary to the Arrow view, endogenous entry threat in a market induces the average firm to invest less in R&D and the incumbent leader to invest more. We test these predictions with a Tobit model based on a unique dataset...

Under ex ante access regulation entrants often claim that access fees are excessive. I show that this is only the case if further entry is admitted. If the entrant is protected from further entry it would agree with the incumbent upon a strictly positive access fee which may exceed the efficient...

In the advent of postal market liberalization in several European countries we expect that the incumbent operators anticipate entry by competitors who are not required to offer universal service, i.e. coverage of the entire country and uniform pricing. The market for postal service exhibits...

This paper analyzes empirically the determinants of new born firms' initial size. As survival prospects of young firms tend to be linked to a firm's start-up size, a better understanding of the factors influencing start-up size is crucial. Most of the rare literature on initial firm size focuses...

In this paper we are going to analyze the dynamics of barriers to entry at the international level. In our model economic development takes place and continues in the long run due to the emergence of new sectors, which can compensate for the diminishing ability of mature sectors to create...