Logo
Munich Personal RePEc Archive

Potential Competition in the Presence of Sunk Entry Costs: An Experiment

Dasgupta, Utteeyo (2009): Potential Competition in the Presence of Sunk Entry Costs: An Experiment. Published in: New Zealand Economics Papers , Vol. 43, No. 2 (August 2009): pp. 203-225.

[thumbnail of MPRA_paper_21945.pdf]
Preview
PDF
MPRA_paper_21945.pdf

Download (39kB) | Preview

Abstract

I study the effect of sunk entry-costs on potential competition in a multi-market framework, where potential entrants have different home market profits. Although sunk-entry-costs are supposed to increase entry barriers, my experimental results suggest that firms view entry costs differently depending on their home market profits. I find that subjects are reluctant to enter, and compete in another market if they are already earning monopoly rents. Subjects instead, collude tacitly and earn monopoly rents in home markets, thereby weakening the effect of potential competition. In contrast, subjects who earn small secure returns in their home markets aggressively enter the contestable market whenever there are scopes for earning net profits. The threat of entry and the effects of potential competition are strong in the latter situation, forcing the monopoly incumbents to lower prices to limit-pricing levels.

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact us: mpra@ub.uni-muenchen.de

This repository has been built using EPrints software.

MPRA is a RePEc service hosted by Logo of the University Library LMU Munich.