We examine whether sharp debt increases through leveraged buyouts and recapitalizations interact with market structure to influence plant closing and investment decisions of recapitalizing firms and their rivals. We take into account the fact that recapitalizations and investment decisions are both endogenous and may be simultaneously influenced by the same exogenous events. Following their recapitalizations, firms in industries with high concentration are more likely to close plants and less likely to invest. Rival firms are less likely to close plants and more likely to invest when the market share of leveraged firms is higher.

This paper analyzes duopolistic price-leadership games in which firms have capacity constraints. We provide a complete characterization of price leader equilibria under quite general assumptions on demand and for arbitrary capacities. We show that when capacities are in the range where the simultaneous-move price-setting game (with efficiently rationed demand) yields a mixed-strategy solution the large firm is indifferent between being a leader, a follower, or moving simultaneously. The small firm, while indifferent between being a leader and moving simultaneously, strictly prefers to be a follower. This motivates the discussion of games of timing with ex-post inflexible prices in which the large firm becomes an endogenously determined price leader. We thus provide a game-theoretic model of dominant-firm price leadership.

We examine whether sharp debt increases through leveraged buyouts and recapitalizations interact with market structure to influence plant closing and investment decisions of recapitalizing firms and their rivals. We take into account the fact that recapitalizations and investment decisions are both endogenous and may be simultaneously influenced by the same exogenous events. Following their recapitalizations, firms in industries with high concentration are more likely to close plants and less likely to invest. Rival firms are less likely to close plants and more likely to invest when the market share of leveraged firms is higher.