Switching Costs and the foreign Firm's Entry

Kikuchi, Toru (2008): Switching Costs and the foreign Firm's Entry.

Abstract

This paper considers a two-period model of market entry with homogeneous products and switching costs. It is shown that the pro-competitive effect of a foreign firm's entry (i.e., unilateral trade liberalization) emerges before the entry. Also, conditions that are conducive to a competitive environment in the second-period are shown to yield a less competitive outcome in the first-period. That is, when the marginal cost of the foreign entrant is relatively low, the first-period output of a domestic monopolist is relatively low as well.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Switching Costs; Foreign Firm's Entry
• Subjects: F - International Economics > F1 - Trade > F12 - Models of Trade with Imperfect Competition and Scale Economies ; Fragmentation