In this paper we evaluate the changes in the times-to-degree at the Finnish universities in the 1990s. In particular, we evaluate the effect of the 1992 student aid reform that was intended to shorten the duration of university studies. We find that the student aid reform had only a modest...

Recent theoretical and empirical contributions stress the importance of financial development for international trade. This paper investigates whether financial constraints matter for foreign market entry at the firm level using dynamic panel data techniques. The empirical framework is applied...

This paper extends the static analysis of oligopoly structure into an infinite-horizon setting with sunk costs and demand uncertainty. The observation that exit rates decline with firm age motivates the assumption of last-in first-out dynamics: An entrant expects to produce no longer than any...

This paper considers the effects of raising the cost of entry for a potential competitor on infinite-horizon Markov-perfect duopoly dynamics with ongoing demand uncertainty. All entrants serving the model industry incur sunk costs, and exit avoids future fixed costs. We focus on the unique...

This paper studies the influence of mobility barriers on industry evolution using the stylised pure selection model developed by Metcalfe. It is shown that mobility barriers influence industry dynamics by reducing the speed of competitive selection. Based on the theoretical model, we argue that...

This paper revisits the "footloose" nature of multinational firms (MNFs) hypothesis. Using firm-level data for Belgium over the period 1997-2008, we rely on a Probit model and take into account the endogeneity of the determinants of firm exit. Our results may be summarised as follows. First, the...

Recent economic literature suggests the importance of sunk costs and hysteresis in explaining export patterns in international trade. To explore their empirical importance, we present a new conceptual framework that distinguishes six different types of exporter behaviour, and apply this...

We empirically investigate whether firms lower information frictions in foreign sourcing through prior exporting. Using a panel of Slovenian manufacturing firms in the period 1996-2011, we estimate the probability of import entry in a new market when the firm is already exporting to the same...

Victorious alliances often fight about the spoils of war. We consider experimentally when members of victorious alliances accept a peaceful division of the spoils, and when they fight against each other, and how the inability to commit to a peaceful division affects their effort contributions in...

In this paper we study a continuous time, optimal stochastic investment problem under limited resources in a market with N firms. The investment processes are subject to a time-dependent stochastic constraint. Rather than using a dynamic programming approach, we exploit the concavity of the...