This dissertation extends the economics literature in industrial organization with two essays on firms' pricing strategies and technology adoption in imperfectly competitive markets. The first essay focuses on the modeling and analysis of the effect of competition on price dispersion in markets with firm capacity constraints and consumer brand loyalty. The second essay explores the evolution of learning and uncertainty in consumers' adoption of a new technology. Given that price is an important factor in consumers' purchase decisions, the exploration of the pricing and adoption issues mentioned above provides insights into both the demand side and the supply side decisions. The analyses are applied to the U.S. biotech and seed industry.

This paper analyzes the optimal investment strategy of two firms confronted with the option to adopt a new technology. I add two key features: location and learning. A firm gains relative advantage entirely due to its geographic placement - this is the location benefit. Firms also learn from the adoption experience of their rival - this is the learning benefit. Imperfect competition induces firms to adopt early while learning induces firms to wait. This tradeoff has two implications: First, firms in better locations should never adopt after their rivals; second, technology adoption should be geographically clustered. These implications are consistent with the direct evidence regarding technology adoption. Since investment in a new technology is a growth option, location and learning also affect asset prices. I show that firms' risk loadings (beta's) and returns co-vary positively for geographically close firms.

Sage Advice on Going Global Root's perspective is extremely insightful, and clearly the work of one who knows his topics from personal experience. It encapsulates what some of us have taken decades to learn through trial and error. --Larry D. Bouts, president, International Division, Toys-R-Us, Inc. The North American Free Trade Agreement, the new European common market, and the opening of Eastern Europe--among other recent geopolitical developments--have created unprecedented opportunities for American companies seeking to enter foreign markets. This guide offers executives practical advice, recently updated and expanded, on deciding which markets to enter, choosing a product for international distribution, designing an entry strategy, and developing an effective international marketing plan.

The Economics of Information Technology is a concise and accessible review of some of the important economic factors affecting information technology industries. These industries are characterized by high fixed costs and low marginal costs of production, large switching costs for users, and strong network effects. These factors combine to produce some unique behavior. The book consists of two parts. In the first part, Professor Varian outlines the basic economics of these industries. In the second part, Professors Farrell and Shapiro describe the impact of these factors on competition policy. The clarity of the analysis and exposition makes this an ideal introduction for undergraduate and graduate students in economics, business strategy, law and related areas.

The incorporation of digital technologies into the products of diverse industries, accompaniedby a shift to von-Neumann-like platform architectures, while resulting in substantially more valuableand flexible products, also leads to increased substitutability across previously distinct markets. This paperanalyzes the economic implications of this trade-off in technology markets subject to digital convergence.We present a new model of imperfect competition that captures flexible platform scope, variability in consumerrequirements, and multiple product purchases. We specify four types of equilibrium configurations- local monopoly, kinked, competitive and non-exclusive - that emerge as outcomes of the model, anddescribe how each equilibrium structure characterizes a distinct stage of digital convergence.Our analysis establishes that as markets converge, prices always rise initially even as competing productsbecome less differentiated. However, when platform scope is largely dictated by exogenous factors, pricesand profits eventually fall as the stage of convergence progresses, though consumer surplus and totalsurplus rise. Furthermore, while convergence has the expected effect of shifting consumption patternsfrom purchasing multiple specialized products to buying a single general-purpose product, we describeexamples of equilibria in which consumers may buy multiple general-purpose products, using each fora specialized subset of their requirements. Pricing responses to changes in variable costs and consumerfunctionality needs are also discussed.When firms can make strategic choices of platform scope, we show that in any subgame perfect equilibrium,duopoly prices are always higher than monopoly prices, and industries may sustain high levels ofprofitability even when their boundaries blur. We also establish that as technological progress lowers fixedcosts, a natural outcome is for unregulated firms to over-invest in platform scope relative to the socialoptimum, and that this outcome is true under both monopoly and duopoly market structures.

Public Policy in Food and Agriculture is a component of Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Sciences, Engineering and Technology Resources in the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias. The theme on Public Policy in Food and Agriculture with contributions from distinguished experts in the field discusses food and agricultural policy - refers to all means by which a country regulates food and agriculture to achieve objectives subject to political, economic, social, and technological constraints. The content of the theme is organized with state-of-the-art presentations covering the following aspects of the subject: Public Regulation of Food and Agricultural Markets; Inspection, Quarantine and Quality Control; Land Management and Property Rights; Food Security and Government Intervention. This volume is aimed at the following five major target audiences: University and College students Educators, Professional practitioners, Research personnel and Policy analysts, managers, and decision makers and NGOs.

These two volumes bring together a set of important essays that represent a "new Keynesian" perspective in economics today. This recent work shows how the Keynesian approach to economic fluctuations can be supported by rigorous microeconomic models of economic behavior. The essays are grouped in seven parts that cover costly price adjustment, staggering of wages and prices, imperfect competition, coordination failures, and the markets for labor, credit, and goods. An overall introduction, brief introductions to each of the parts, and a bibliography of additional papers in the field round out this valuable collection.Volume 1 focuses on how friction in price setting at the microeconomic level leads to nominal rigidity at the macroeconomic level, and on the macroeconomic consequences of imperfect competition, including aggregate demand externalities and multipliers. Volume 2 addresses recent research on non-Walrasian features of the labor, credit, and goods markets. Contributors George A Akerlof, Costas Azariadis, Laurence Ball, Ben S. Bernanke, Mark Bits, Olivier J. Blanchard, Alan S. Blinder, John Bryant, Andrew S. Caplin, Dennis W. Carlton, Stephen G. Cecchetti, Russell Cooper, Peter A. Diamond, Gary Fethke, Stanley Fischer, Robert E. Hall, Oliver Hart, Andrew John, Nobuhiro Kiyotaki, Alan B. Krueger, David M. Lilien, Ian M. McDonald, N. David Mankiw, Arthur M. Okun, Andres Policano, David Romer, Julio J. Rotemberg, Garth Saloner, Carl Shapiro, Andrei Shleifer, Robert M. Solow, Daniel F. Spulber, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Lawrence H. Summers, John Taylor, Andrew Weiss, Michael Woodford, Janet L. Yellen