Recent work in the real options approach to investment has argued that firms face significant opportunity costs when entry costs are largely irreversible, and these costs equal the value of an option to defer investment. This study seeks to examine empirically these claims by investigating the interactive effects of uncertainty and irreversibility on the likelihood of entry into new business by...

A free entry model with linear costs is considered where firms first choose their entry time and then compete in the market according to the resulting timing decisions. Multiple equilibria arise allowing for infinitely many industry output configurations encompassing one limit-output dominant firm and the Cournot equilibrium with free entry as extreme cases. Sequential entry is never observed. ...

Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) was used to study the C60 adsorption on the Si rich (3x3) and C rich (43x43) surface of 6H-SiC(0001). At room temperature, triangular or hexagonal islands commensurating to the substrate structure at submonlayer coverages were observed. One of the interesting observations was the nucleation of the second layer of the C60 molecule^ even at submonlayer coverage...

We use data from eBay to identify hundreds of thousands of instances in which retailers posted otherwise identical product listings with targeted variation in pricing and auction design. We use these matched listings to measure the dispersion in auction prices for identical goods sold by the same seller, to estimate nonparametric auction demand curves, to analyze the effect of buy it now option...

Empirical research has shown tremendous productivity di erences, even within narrowly de ned industries. A great host of studies is explainsing this productivity disparity by factors such as idiosyncratic technology shocks, input price di erences, management skills, or international trade. Although these explanations are undoubtedly important, the current paper suggests that product diversi cat...

I consider an oligopoly model where, prior to price competition, firms invest in persuasive advertising and induce brand loyalty in consumers who would otherwise buy the cheapest alternative on the market. This setting, in which persuasive advertising is introduced to homogenous product markets, provides an alternative explanation for price dispersion phenomena. Despite ex-ante symmetry, the eq...

The authors examine industry concentration for the U.S. food manufacturing sector. This study is the first to examine whether particular subsectors within the food manufacturing industry, which operate in the presence of industry-funded check-off programs such as marketing orders, are more or less concentrated than industries without such research and marketing programs. The authors find eviden...