environmental protection has become one of the main concerns in developed economies, which is why an increasing degree of commitment in the field is required from all public and private bodies. environmental protection in firms must cease to be a secondary, barely profitable objective, involving the performance of sporadic remedial actions, and become just one more element of their organization...

Why are some uncompetitive industry sectors so effective in lobbying for greater protection and support? This paper attempts to explain the lobbying success of these industries in terms of the strategic role of investment in technology as a credible commitment device. By eschewing potentially profitable investment opportunities firms credibly signal to the government that the cost of a tariff r...

We analyze the effects of downstream firms’ acquisition of pure cash flow rights in an efficient upstream supplier when all firms compete in prices. With an acquisition, downstream firms internalize the effects of their actions on their rivals’ sales. Double marginalization is enhanced. Whereas full vertical integration would lead to decreasing, passive backwards ownership leads to increasing d...

This paper studies the impact of foreign bank entry on domestic firms’ access to bank credit using a within-country staggered geographic variation in the policy of foreign bank lending in China. The paper finds that after foreign bank entry profitable firms use more long-term bank loans; whereas firms with higher value of potential collateral do not. It also finds that non-state-owned firms bec...

This article discusses the limits of the transaction cost explanation of the existence of the firm. It develops three simple models that compare the profitability of firms and markets, two without transaction costs related to market trading. In both firms and markets it is assumed that skills increase due to a static specialisation effect. In addition, in the first two models, firms benefit fro...

Purpose This paper investigates whether sustainability performance (SP) protects financial (FP) for firms in both developed and emerging economies during the COVID-19-induced economic downturn. Design/methodology/approach Using a recent sample of 34 countries between 2003 2021, authors employ ordinary least squares regressions, moderations Heckman two-step method to test hypotheses. Findings Fi...

We consider a market where firms hire workers to run their projects and such projects differ in profitability. At any period, each firm needs two workers to successfully run its project: a junior agent, with no specific skills, and a senior worker, whose effort is not verifiable. Senior workers differ in ability and their competence is revealed after they have worked as juniors in the market. W...

In this paper we consider whether a movement towards freer international trade generates incentives for firms to merge and if so what forms of merger are most profitable. In a linear Cournot framework we show that a reduction in trade costs may, but will not necessarily, encourage mergers. Both market structure and the level to which trade costs fall are shown to play a decisive role. Domestic ...

Profitable Horizontal Mergers without Cost Advantages: The Role of Internal Organization, Information, and Market Structure by Steffen Huck, Kai A. Konrad and Wieland Müller Merged firms are typically rather complex organizations. Accordingly, merger has a more profound effect on the structure of a market than simply reducing the number of competitors. We show that this may render horizontal me...

We examine the profitability and implications of online discount vouchers, a relatively new marketing tool that offers consumers large discounts when they prepay for participating firms’ goods and services. Within a model of repeat experience good purchase, we examine two mechanisms whereby a discount voucher service can benefit affiliated firms: price discrimination and advertising. For vouche...