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We design an asymmetric duopoly model with inherited market dominance such that the dominant firm and the small firm can price discriminate based on consumers' purchase history. We show that uniform pricing softens competition leading to higher industry profits than under history-based pricing. Consumers benefit from history-based price discrimination unless the switching cost is sufficiently high and the inherited degree of dominance is sufficiently weak. A ban on history-based pricing would typically introduce a distributional conflict between consumers and producers. Finally, we establish that the gains to industry profits associated with uniform pricing exceed the associated losses to consumers. JEL Classification: D4, L1, L41

This study develops a real options approach for analyzing the optimal risk adoption policy in an environment where the adoption means a switch from one stochastic flow representation into another. We establish that increased volatility does not necessarily decelerate investment, as predicted by the standard literature on real options, once the underlying volatility of the state variable is made endogenous. We prove that for a decision maker with a convex (concave) objective function, increased post-adoption volatility increases (decreases) the expected cumulative present value of the post-adoption profit flow, which consequently decreases (increases) the option value of waiting and, therefore, accelerates (decelerates) current investment. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin/Heidelberg 2003Risk adoption, Investment, Real option.,

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. We analyze differentiated retail industries where shops engage in two-stage competition with respect to opening hours and prices. We explore the effects of consumers' shopping time flexibility by comparing bi-directional consumers with forward-or backward-oriented consumers, who can either postpone or advance their shopping, but not both. We demonstrate that retailers with longer opening hours charge higher prices and that opening hour differentiation softens price competition. We calculate both symmetric and asymmetric subgame perfect equilibria in closing hours and demonstrate how the equilibrium configurations depend on the cost increases associated with extended business hours, as well as the relative densities of day and night shoppers. Terms of use: Documents in