On the Effects of Sunk Costs

W. Bentley Macleod ()

Working Paper from Economics Department, Queen's University

Abstract: This paper studies the effect of sunk cost on equilibria for a dynamic oligopoly with entry. Sunk costs are a hysteresis effect that cannot be adequately modelled in a static framework. When sunk costs are added to a dynamic model they do not act as a barrier to entry, contrary to general perception. Using the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium concept shows that as the fraction of costs that are sunk rises, the number of entrants rise and profits per firm fall.

Pages: 24 pages
Date: 1984
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:qed:wpaper:555

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