This paper develops a new approach to testing for strategic entry deterrence and applies it to the behavior of pharmaceutical incumbents just before they lose patent protection. The approach involves looking at a cross-section of markets and examining whether behavior is nonmonotonic in the size of the market. Under certain conditions, investment levels will be monotone in market size if firms are not influenced by a desire to deter entry. Strategic investments, however, may be nonmonotone because entry deterrence is unnecessary in very small markets and impossible in very large ones, resulting in overall nonmonotonic investment. The pharmaceutical data contain advertising, product proliferation, and pricing information for a sample of drugs which lost patent protection between 1986 and 1992. Among the findings consistent with an entry deterrence motivation are that incumbents in markets of intermediate size have lower levels of advertising and are more likely to reduce advertising immediately prior to patent expiration.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
13069.
Length: Date of creation: Apr 2007 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13069
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Find related papers by JEL classification: L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets L65 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - Chemicals; Rubber; Drugs; Biotechnology
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Kenneth L. Judd, 1983.
"Credible Spatial Preemption,"
Discussion Papers
577, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
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