Beer and the Tie: Did Divestiture of Brewer-owned Public Houses Lead to Higher Beer Prices?

In 1989, the United Kingdom Monopolies and Mergers Commission (MMC) recommended measures that eventually led brewers to divest themselves of 14,000 public houses. The MMC claimed that their recommendations would lower retail prices and increase consumer choice. Since that time, however, retail prices have risen. This paper contains an econometric analysis of the transition period. The analysis is based on a model of the relationship between retail price and retail-organisational form that emphasises how exclusive-dealing clauses and strategic factors interact     

Spillovers in Space: Does Geography Matter?

Using U.S. firm level panel data we simultaneously assess the contributions to productivity of three potential sources of research and development spillovers: geographic, technological, and product market (“horizontal”). To do so, we construct new measures of geographic proximity based on the distribution of a firm's inventor locations as well as its headquarters. We find that geographic location is important for productivity, as are technology (but not product) spillovers, and that both intra and inter–regional (counties) spillovers matter. The geographic location of a firm's researchers is more important than its headquarters. These benefits may be the reason why local policy makers compete so hard for the location of local R&D labs and high tech workers.     

Scoring an Own Goal? Ethical issues in the UK professional soccer business

It is only in recent years that soccer has become big business, and the ethical strains are beginning to show. What is the “product” and where do fans figure in the list of “stakeholders”? The writer is completing his MBA at London Business School, and is a lifelong football fan.     

Local search and the evolution of technological capabilities

The assumption that ‘local search’ constrains the direction of corporate R&D is central in evolutionary perspectives on technological change and competition. In this paper, we propose a network-analytic approach for identifying the evolution of firms' technological positions. The approach (1) permits graphical and quantitative assessments of the extent to which firms' search behavior is locally bounded, and (2) enables firms to be positioned and grouped according to the similarities in their innovative capabilities. The utility of the proposed framework is demonstrated by an analysis of strategic partnering and the evolution of the technological positions of the 10 largest Japanese semiconductor producers from 1982 to 1992.