I survey a number of stylized facts pertaining to the dynamics of firm entry, growth, and exit in competitive industries. I focus particularly on data for Portugal, although I also consider, for comparison purposes, data from other countries. I then present a series of theoretical models that attempt to explain the stylized facts and evaluate the welfare impact of market distortions. Finally, I...

Sutton (1998) has recently proposed a theoretical lower bound to firm size inequality when a market is made of several independent submarkets. His results are valid asymptotically, as the number of submarkets becomes arbitrarily large. We show that, in small samples, his results can be interpreted as a positive relationship between an index of firm size inequality and the number of submarkets. ...

We derive a measure of firm speed of price adjustment that is directly inversely related to market power and compare this to the measure derived by Martin (1993). However, both measures are incorrect when firms have non-zero price conjectural variations and treat competing price levels as exogenous. This is because Taylor series expansions of the demand function implicitly assume that firms inf...

Jochen Ludewig . Studium der ElcktrotCcJl· nik an der T U Hannover. Aufbaustudium Inform:lIik an der TU München. ~·Ii \(lrbc i ­ leT a l11 Institut fü r Datenyerarbe itung des KcrnforschllllgszcntTUmS Karlsruhe. 1981 Promotion durch die T U Mü nchen. Leite r des Projekts Soft ware Engineering im ßrown Boreri Forschungszentrum in Baden/Schweiz. Seit 1988 ProL für Sort\\';Lrc Engineering an der U...

Received 10/6/2009 Accepted 14/2/2010 (004240) 1 Laboratório L11 de Pesquisa Química Analítica e Inorgânica, Departamento de Química, Mestrado em Ciência e Tecnologia de Alimentos, Universidade Estadual de Ponta Grossa – UEPG, Av. Carlos Cavalcanti, 4748, CEP 84030-900, Ponta Grossa – PR, Brasil, E-mail: [email protected] *Corresponding author Determination of pectin methylesterase activity in co...

This paper studies a model of product variety with flexible manufacturers when, contrary to prior work, atomistic entry occurs prior to horizontal integration. In this model, more lax antitrust laws that allow for fewer and more concentrated merged firms lead to a greater extent of excess entry. Optimal policy permits no horizontal mergers when demand is perfectly inelastic, but may permit some...