By using various indicators, empirical evidence for the manufacturing sector strongly suggests that there is a positive relationship between the size and diversification of firms. Moreover, there is evidence on an important role of firm-specific characteristics for both diversification patterns and firm size. For instance, Davies et al. (2001) conclude that “many empirical studies confirm positive statistical associations between diversification, firm size, R&D and advertising” (p. 1317) and argue that “diversification is driven [...] by a desire to exploit a specific asset” (p. 1334).
This paper presents an oligopoly model of asymmetric multiproduct firms in order to examine the apparent link between firm size, diversification and specific characteristics of firms. The set up may be described as follows. Potential firms decide whether or not to enter at some fixed cost. They are endowed with some possibly different (and immutable) marginal cost and product quality. These characteristics are of public good nature from the perspective of a firm, i.e., apply to any good within a firm’s product line. After entering the economy, firms choose the number of products offered to the market (stage 1), and then enter product market competition (stage 2).
Rural healthcare is becoming a core feature in the undergraduate curricula of the Faculty of Health Science at the University of Tasmania, Australia. Tasmania, like the rest of the world, has a shortage of health professionals working in rural and remote areas. Because nurses represent the largest discipline in the health workforce, the shortfalls have a devastating impact on rural and remote communities. The past decade has been characterised by some notable initiatives that are designed to address the maldistributed health workforce. At the undergraduate level various incentives are resulting in increased emphasis on rural practice in pre-qualifying health science education. In terms of the rural undergraduate program, the Tasmanian School of Nursing does not receive the same level of support as the Schools of Medicine and Pharmacy.
The empirical anomalies related to the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), typified by the size, value, and momentum effects, lie at the center of multi-factor asset pricing models. Especially, the model by Fama and French (1992, 1993) incorporates the excess returns on two portfolios capturing the size and value premiums as the additional factors. They estimated and tested this three-factor model using twenty-five equity returns from portfolios sorted by stocks’ sizes and book-to market ratios. The research in empirical finance has been focusing on multi-factor asset pricing models since then, and mainly geared toward identifying asset pricing anomalies, thereby new pricing factors.
