This paper examines the importance of geographical differentiation in store location decisions of firms in the retail discount industry. Using a novel data set that includes the store locations and accompanying market conditions for all stores belonging to the Wal-Mart, Kmart, and Target chains,...

We study the entry timing and location decisions of two exclusive buyer-supplier relationships in a continuous-time spatial competition model. In each relationship, the firms determine their entry timing and location, and negotiate a wholesale price through Nash bargaining. Then, the downstream...

Looking at a large number of markets, I find that (i) prices and variety are higher when there are two competing supermarkets than in those with a single store and (ii) the two effects are positively correlated. This pattern persists after controlling for differences across markets in a variety...

We analyze the strategic protection decision of an innovator between a patent and secrecy in a setting with horizontally differentiated products. By introducing the patenting decision into the well known circular city model, the impact of the disclosure requirement linked to a patent application...