Sunk Costs,Accommodation, and the Welfare Effects of Entry

Although economists usually support the unrestricted entry of firms into an industry, entry may lower social welfare if there are setup costs or if entrants have a cost disadvantage. We consider the welfare effects of entry within a standard Cournot model where some of an incumbent firm’s costs are sunk. We find that the range of parameter values over which entry can harm welfare declines monotonically in the fraction of cost that are sunk. Furthermore, the presence of even a small fraction of sunk costs often reverses an assessment that entry harms welfare.     

Sunk costs and resource mobility: An empirical study

While the concept of sunk costs has become increasingly important in theoretical work, relatively few empirical studies have examined sunk costs. The present study focuses on the relationship between tangible sunk costs and entry. An estimate of industry specific capital, derived from engineering-statistical cost estimates, is employed as a proxy for tangible sunk costs. With this measure we can test directly the relationship between irreversible investments and entry in a sample consisting of 40 U.S. manufacturing industries. The primary finding is that tangible sunk costs have a deterrent effect on entry.     

ADVERTISING SUNK COSTS AND CREDIBLE SPATIAL PREEMPTION

Large sunk investments in advertising allow managers to credibly preempt potential entrants by introducing new products prior to anticipated increases in market growth. Previous investment in advertising can lower a firm's cost to introduce new products allowing it to credibly preempt potential entrants. Entrants may not have enough residual share to find it profitable to enter later, and incumbents find it profitable to keep new products in the market even if entrants choose to enter. I present empirical evidence from the RTE cereal industry.     

Does the fourth entrant make any difference?: Entry and competition in the early U.S. broadband market

We study the importance of sunk costs in determining entry conditions and inferences about firm conduct in an adapted Bresnahan and Reiss (1991, 1994) framework. In our framework, entrants incur sunk costs to enter, while incumbents disregard these costs in deciding on continuation or exit. We apply this framework to study entry and competition in the local U.S. broadband markets from 1999 to 2003. Ignoring sunk costs generates unreasonable variation in firms' competitive conduct over time. This variation disappears when entry costs are allowed. Once the market has one to three incumbent firms, the fourth entrant has little effect on competitive conduct.     

Empirical studies of entry and exit: A survey of the evidence

Over 70 empirical studies of entry and exit patterns covering eleven different countries generally support the expectation that entry is more frequent in more profitable, rapidly growing industries, and slower where the absolute costs of capital required to build a minimum efficient scale plant are imposing. Scale economies, excess capacity, and limit pricing receive little empirical support as entry impediments. The evidence concerning the effects of advertising and R&D intensity is confusing.Exit is faster where profits are lower, and slower where durable specific (sunk) capital costs are more important. Exit and entry are strongly correlated, probably due to displacement (of incumbents by more efficient entrants) and vacuum effects (in which entrants are enticed by the prospects of selling to uncommitted customers abandoned by a recent exit).     

Why Do Established Firms Enter Some Industries and Exit Others? Empirical Evidence on Italian Business Groups

In this paper the determinants of entry and exitdecisions are analysed empirically on a sample of wellestablished business groups operating in Italianmanufacturing. The focus is on the role of sunk costsas entry barriers. Two competing hypotheses aretested. On the one hand, setup costs, R & D andadvertising outlays act as barriers to entry for bothnew and already established firms because of theirindustry-specific commitment value. On the other hand,they may induce established firms, which operate insimilar industries, to enter. This is the case if R & Dand advertising are firm-specific investments whichgenerate externalities to be efficiently exploited inadjacent industries. Overall results suggest that thesecond hypothesis gives a better picture of thebehaviour of our sample of firms.     

Economies of scale,strategic advertising and fully credible entry deterrence

Recent work on entry deterrence has emphasized the distinction between a monopolist’s reversible and irreversible preentry strategic moves (e.g., limit pricing) will not credible deter a rational potential entrant. Dixit (1980) and other have demonstrated, however, that irreversible preentry capacity investments can result in credible deterrence. In this paper, we examine preentry advertising investments which irreversibly alter postentry demand conditions. Using an infinite horizon model, we show that preentry investments in advertising may result in credible deterrence even for the extreme case where an entrant expects a collusive postentry price, and the monopolist ceases all advertising at the moment of entry.     

Dual clocks: Entry order influences on incumbent and newcomer market share and survival when specialized assets retain their value

Entry order analysis often shows that early entrants to an industry or technical subfield of an industry outperform laggards. Some studies, though, have found that late entrants prevail. This paper tests dual-clock hypotheses of entry order effects on performance, measured both as market share and survival. One entry clock records the entry of all entrants to a new technical subfield within an industry, while a second clock records the entry of industry incumbents. Relative to the appropriate clock, early entrants are predicted to outperform laggards, but when entry is measured on only one clock, the estimated influences may be inaccurate. Error will be particularly likely if a study contains a survivor bias. The study, which finds entry timing trade-offs between market share and survival, is generalizable to cases in which a plausible set of conditions is found.     

Firm and environmental influences on the mode and sequence of foreign research and development activities

This paper develops an explanation for the mode and sequence of entry that firms select for their international research and development activities. The hypotheses are based on the internalization and evolutionary theory perspectives. I first hypothesize that there is a sequence to the mode of foreign research and development activities initiated. I then discuss two firm capabilities and alternatives which might cause firms to omit parts of the sequence. The context of the study is the foreign research and development activities of incumbents and recent entrants to the Japanese pharmaceutical industry. The results indicate intriguing differences between the motivations of established firms and new entrants in establishing foreign research and development activities. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The survival of new plants: Start-up conditions and post-entry evolution

This paper examines the longevity of entrants. We find size to be an important determinant of the chances of survival, this being particularly relevant to de novo entrants as compared with entry by established firms. Current size is also found to be a better predictor of failure than initial size. Moreover, our findings indicate that, after controlling for size differences, past growth matters for survival suggesting a partial adjustment process for firm size in the post entry period. Finally, new plants are more likely to live longer if they enter growing industries or industries with little entry activity.     

Fast‐mover advantages: Speed capabilities and entry into the emerging submarket of atlantic basin LNG

Entry timing benefits and costs typically vary with firms' capabilities. In this study, we empirically examine the entry timing implications of firms' intrinsic speed capabilities, which refer to the ability to execute investment projects faster than competitors. We hypothesize that firms with intrinsic speed capabilities face low preemption risks and, thus, can afford to wait longer for uncertainty resolution before deciding to enter new markets. This hypothesis is more applicable when investment is associated with higher levels of commitment and, thus, greater option value of waiting. A direct implication is that late entrants with intrinsic speed capabilities should have greater expected post‐entry performance. We find support for these hypotheses in the Atlantic Basin liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry from 1996 to 2007. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Is failure good?

Approximately 80–90 percent of new firms ultimately fail. The tendency is to think of this failure as wasteful. We, however, examine whether there are economic benefits to offset the waste. We characterize three potential mechanisms through which excess entry affects market structure, firm behavior, and efficiency, then test them in the banking industry. Results indicate that failed firms generate externalities that significantly and substantially reduce industry cost. On average these benefits exceed the private costs of the entrants. Thus failure appears to be good for the economy. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Growing pains: Pre‐entry experience and the challenge of transition to incumbency

We examine how entrepreneurial entry by diversifying and de novo firms in new industries leads to different levels of performance. We propose that these types of firms differ in dynamic capabilities, which help them overcome growth impediments and transition to incumbency in the industry. Growth impediments arise at larger size, older tenure levels in industry, and after technological discontinuities. Because of their prior experience, diversifying firms are better equipped to handle the challenges of impediments to growth. Meanwhile, de novo firms, ostensibly tailor‐made for the targeted industry, are more likely to stumble over these growth challenges, and eventually lag behind diversifying firms. We find support for our hypotheses using a near census of firms in the U.S. wireless telecommunications industry over the 1983–2004 period. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Entry into Swedish Retail and Wholesale Trade Markets

This paper examines, using a zero-inflated negative binomial regression model, what determined entry into the Swedish retail and wholesale trade markets between 1990 and 1996. According to the results, high returns on equity and low sunk costs seemed to attract more entry into retail trade industries, while recent entry and higher total industry sales were associated with more entry into both retail and wholesale trade local markets.     

Sunk costs,contestability and airline monopoly power

This paper examines the effects of sunk costs and potential competition on pricing behavior in monopoly airline markets. We find little evidence to support the proposition from contestable markets theory that the level of sunk costs influences pricing by monopolists. Rather, the results support the view, consistent with numerous game theoretic oligopoly models, that the costs and the price-cutting reputation of potential entrants influence incumbent behavior. These results suggest that contestability theory may not be robust. Even in the markets characterized by increasing returns to scale, the perfectly contestable market may not be a useful welfare standard.I am grateful to Richard Levin, Merton J. Peck, Sharon Oster, Paul MacAvoy, Dan Kaplan, Michael Levine, David Sappington, Andrea Shepard, and Diana Strassman for their advice. Participants at numerous workshops also made useful comments. Steven Davis, Tadas Osmolshis, and Maeve O'Higgins provided help with the data and technical assistance. I acknowledge financial support from Yale University and the Eno Foundation for Transportation. The usual disclaimer, of course, applies.     

Sunk Cost and Entry

The usual mechanisms by which sunk costs are said to affect entry arethrough raising the expected average cost of an entrant, relative to that ofincumbents. I show that in standard models and in the absence of riskpremia imposed by financial markets on an entrant's cost of capital, sunkcosts may make entry unprofitable because of their effect on the post-entryunit costs of incumbents.     

Option value and entry timing

When facing uncertainty, firms entering new markets can make initial foothold investments rather than undertake large sunk investments. Such investments are real call option purchases. They offer management flexibility, but also raise questions about whether and when to increase commitments to new markets. We present an entry timing decision criterion and discuss its application to a variety of market entry situations. Optimal timing for exercising real options depends on current dividends, possibilities for preemption, and whether the option is simple or compound, proprietary or shared. Our analysis reveals critical assumptions and new theoretical insights regarding market entry timing. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Firm entry and firm growth

This paper reports on the importance of firm entry and growth flows in Portuguese manufacturing during the period 1982–86, and investigates their determinants. We find that both movements are induced by past profitability and deterred by economies of scale, product differentiation and sunk costs. The analysis does not reject the hypothesis that the determinants of firm entry and growth are quantitatively the same, thereby giving some support to the hypothesis that entry and expansion are close substitutes in absorbing industry excess profits, and that the choice between them does not depend on the height of the entry/mobility barriers.     

Exploring the sociocultural determinants of de novo versus de alio entry in emerging industries

The influence of institutional factors on firm entry has long interested strategy scholars. However, we have limited understanding of how the sociocultural environment, defined as the unwritten, decentralized “rules of the game,” influences founding rates in emergent industries; we know even less about how these noneconomic factors differentially influence entry by new entrepreneurial (de novo) firms versus diversifying incumbent (de alio) firms. Utilizing a unique dataset on entry in the green building supply industry, we find that, while economic and policy factors are highly correlated with de alio entry, the sociocultural environment exerts a greater influence on de novo firms. Our findings contribute to the literature on corporate demography, institutions and entrepreneurship, and industry emergence. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Entry barriers,release behavior,and multi-product firms in the music recording industry

This article models the product release behavior of multi-product oligopolistic firms in the music recording industry. The model predicts that increasing industry concentration may result in an apportionment of the market among the existing firms, and fewer new product releases. Even though the minimum efficient scale of production in the industry is modest, the apportionment outcome is stabilized by the existence of industry entry barriers that raise the costs of potential competitors or entrants.