This paper investigates an asymmetric duopoly model with a Hotelling line. We find that helping a small (minor) firm can reduce both social and consumer surplus. This makes a sharp contrast to existing works showing that helping minor firms can reduce social surplus but always improves consumer...

This paper examines the role of dual sourcing (e.g., outside options) in vertical and horizontal relations. In a bilateral monopoly market, if either the upstream or downstream firm has outside options, the other firm could lose from seemingly positive shocks, e.g., market expansion or...

This paper examines the role of outside options in a downstream duopoly with exclusive vertical relations as in the Japanese automobile industry. In our setup, the downstream firms have outside options, and two upstream firms with exclusive relations can engage in cost reducing investments. More...

We investigate a Cournot model with strategic R&D investments wherein efficient low-cost firms compete against less efficient high-cost firms. We find that an increase in the number of high-cost firms can stimulate R&D by the low-cost firms, while it always reduces R&D by the high-cost firms....

The main purpose of this paper is to present the empirical findings derived from the data of small firms that the availability of private and public information on the borrowing firm leads to diverse borrowing patterns among firms. Exploring logit models to characterize the firm’s choice of a...

We examine quantitatively the extent to which financial distress in the 90s affected Japanese corporate investment. Based on the firm-level data that includes small, unlisted firms, we estimate investment function to measure the impact of financial distress on investment. We find that the...

In June 2005, a questionnaire survey was sent to 9000 companies in the Kansai Area (Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo), the second largest economic block in Japan, with 2041 companies responding. This article introduces the results of this questionnaire survey. The greatest feature of this study is that,...

This paper studies how a retailer decides the length of product line in a vertically related industry. We study a market with two product varieties. Each retailer decides the number of varieties it procures from an upstream manufacturer. The manufacturer may open an online store and encroach on...

We explore the manufacturer's incentives to use a dual-channel supply chain rather than only a direct or an indirect channel in simultaneous price competition. We first revisit the demand formulation widely used in the context of channel analysis and introduce a different demand formulation...

I revisit supplier encroachment under the framework of a two-part tariff contract. When a monopoly manufacturer supplies competing retailers and each retailer's contracting process is unobservable to the rival, the retailer's lack of knowledge vis-à-vis its rival's contract may undermine the...