Let's make chemistry more competitive

Bargains Followed by Bargains: When Switching Costs Make Markets More Competitive∗†

In markets where consumers have switching costs and firms cannot price discriminate, firms have two conflicting strategies. A firm can either offer a low price to attract new consumers and build future market share or a firm can offer a high price to exploit the partial lock-in of their existing consumers. This paper develops a theory of competition when overlapping generations of consumers hav...

Will 3D at 3-T make myocardial stress perfusion magnetic resonance imaging even more competitive?

Currently, two-dimensional (2D) adenosine stress myocardial perfusion cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) uses 3 to 4 cardiac slices to cover the left ventricular myocardium. Although the performance of 2D adenosine stress myocardial perfusion MRI has been shown to be equal or even better compared with single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) because of its superior image resolut...

Do Switching Costs Make Markets More or Less Competitive?: The Case of 800-Number Portability

Do switching costs reduce or intensify price competition in markets where firms charge the same price to old and new consumers? The answer is theoretically ambiguous because a firm prefers to charge a higher price to previous purchasers who are “locked-in” and a lower price to unattached consumers who offer higher future profitability. 800-number portability provides empirical evidence to deter...

Competitive stress can make the herbicide Roundup® more deadly to larval amphibians.

Toxicity assessments on nontarget organisms have largely been addressed using short-term, single-species laboratory experiments. Although extremely helpful, these experiments inherently lack many pervasive ecological stressors found in nature. Though a substantial challenge, incorporating these ecological stressors in contaminant studies would shed light on potential synergistic effects. For th...

Make Surgeons’ Position More Comfortable