Does the expansion of the Internet provide opportunities for newspapers to attract more readers, or does it threaten their sustainability by cannibalizing subscription revenue from print circulation? To examine these competing hypotheses, I analyzed a unique data set of the monthly number of...

This thesis examines the often competitive interests involved in oil contracts and the ensuing strategic dilemmas faced by both the Republic of Congo and international oil companies that operate in that country. Throughout this thesis, we use the Issues-Frameworks-Actions approach to identify,...

This thesis is about the effects of changing customer preferences on the United States Postal Service's retail network and offers a process for wider adoption of its current retail partnership program. The Contract Postal Unit (CPU) program represents 10 percent of the Postal Service's current...

Faced with a volatile global economy, a rapidly shrinking population and a declining birthrate, Japan needs to find ways to revamp its economic engine. One solution is to increase the participation of Japanese women in the workforce. Over the past decade Japanese society, its government and...

There are a variety of challenges facing the energy industry, from decreased access to sovereign reserves, to declining fields, innovation challenges, increased regulation and new energy policies. These challenges pose a threat to the basic industry structure. Oil & gas companies espouse four...

This thesis contains three separate essays that deal with word of mouth. In the first essay, "Promotional Chat on the Internet," we analyze the firms' incentives to anonymously supply positive reviews of products in chat rooms and other recommendation sites. This, in turn, lowers the credibility...

The principal scope of this project is to design, analyze and report a case study of how to effectively account for the highly likely scenario of a CO2 price policy (cap-and-trade or tax) with regard to Dell's product and supply chain. Dell will use the cost implications of total carbon...

In almost thirty-four years after opening the doors to its first store, the Inditex Group has grown to be one of the largest fashion distributors in the world. Today the group operates more than four thousand retail stores in seventy-three different countries and under eight different brand...

This thesis consists of two chapters that investigate two important issues in banking of the past decade: the effect of banking consolidation on the borrowers and the regulatory capital requirements for banks. The first chapter analyzes the effect of bank mergers on loan prices, and the welfare...

This thesis consists of three empirical essays on securitization and the resolution of financial distress, examining the information content of prices of mortgage-backed securities, the role of securitization in preventing mortgage renegotiation and the effect of minimum bids in ascending price...