Issue 4

Volume 2 JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS & MANAGEMENT STRATEGY
March 1993

Refusals to Deal, Price Discrimination, and Independent Service Organizations

Zhiqi Chen and Thomas W. Ross
A number of recent Canadian and U.S. antitrust cases have involved allegations that manufacturers of durable products have refused to supply parts to independent service organizations, apparently to monopolize the market for repairs of their products. This paper provides a theory of these strategies and considers the welfare implications of judicial orders to supply. The refusals here are seen as necessary to protect manufacturers' program of price discrimination: Expensive repairs represent a way to select high-intensity, high-value users and charge them more.

Collusive Bidding in Hostile Takeovers

R. Preston McAfee, Daniel Vincent, Michael A. Williams and Melanie Williams Havens
Bidders in hostile takeovers have colluded in five separate instances. It is found that these collusive agreements did not affect the target's price significantly. A model is developed to explain this observation. A welfare analysis indicates that a positive probability of cartel formation can be socially beneficial and may or may not be beneficial to the target's shareholders, depending on the process generating takeover attempts.

Eastern European Economic Integration and Foreign Direct Investment

George Norman and Massimo Motta
Economic transition in Eastern Europe should generate market growth. In addition, current discussions on economic integration and the development of a free-trade area in Eastern Europe will improve market accessibility. These two forces will significantly affect the strategies by which external firms will choose to supply markets in Eastern Europe. This paper examines the ways in which supply strategy is likely to change. We show that both market growth and improved market accessibility will lead the external firms to switch from exporting to foreign direct investment.

A Theory of the Distribution of Underpriced Initial Public Offers by Investment Banks

Paolo Fulghieri and Matthew Spiegel
It is well documented that a firm may choose to offer underpriced securities in an initial public offer. An open question is why investment banks do not retain underpriced offers in their portfolio. We argue that the distribution of underpriced securities allows banks of high qualify to signal their value to their customers, promoting in this way their other product lines.

Financial Distress and Optimal Capital Structure Adjustments

Robert Heinkel and Josef Zechner
We show that asymmetric information may prevent firms with pure discount bonds from renegotiating their capital structure prior to the maturity of the debt, although this would increase the value of the firm when its prospects are poor. This inefficiency can be reduced if the firm issues debt with a risky intermediate debt payment, such as a coupon or a sinking fund payment. We also demonstrate that bankruptcy institutions leading to deviations from absolute priority can improve the timing of recapitalizations by financially distressed firms.

Managerial Reaction to Takeover Bids: A Theory of Strategic Resistance

Sankar De and Peter J. Knez
This paper develops a theory to explain the frequently observed resistance offered by the management of target firms to high-premium takeover bids. Contrary to the popular perception of managerial entrenchment at the expense of the shareholders' interests, such resistance may be strategically designed to increase shareholder wealth by threatening to initiate an informal auction process fur the target involving other potential bidders. Remarkably, this strategy can be effective even when it is common knowledge that the other bidders do not have a higher reservation price for the target. The analysis also offers insights into division of takeover gains and several other takeover-related issues.