This paper studies how sunk costs affect a financially constrained incumbent's ability to deter entry into its market. Sunk costs make it less attractive to the incumbent to accommodate entry by liquidating assets in place and exiting the market. This may render entry by a prospective rival...

We argue that the rationalization gains often predicted by static applied general equilibrium models with imperfect competition and scale economies are artificially boosted by an unrealistic treatment of fixed costs. We introduce sunk costs into one such model calibrated with real-world data. We...

We study the source and consequences of sluggish export dynamics in emerging markets following large devaluations. We document two main features of exports that are puzzling for standard trade models. First, given the change in relative prices, exports tend to grow gradually following a...

Does the sunk cost fallacy affect decision-makers in high-stakes situations? We develop a behavioral model of usage of a durable good with mental accounting for sunk costs. It predicts that usage increases in the sunk cost, and attenuates with time at a rate that increases in the sunk cost. The...

Exports respond unpredictably to a change in real exchange rates, suggests evidence from the 1980s.Recent theoretical work explains this as a consequence of the sunk costs associated with breaking into foreign markets. Sunk costs include the cost of packaging, upgrading product quality,...

In this paper we offer a new economic explanation for the observed inter-industry differences in the size distribution of firms. Our empirical estimates based on three temporal (1982, 1987, and 1992) cross-sections of the four-digit US manufacturing industries indicate that increased market...