TY - RPRT AU - Kräkel, Matthias TI - Shutdown Contests in Multi-Plant Firms and Governmental Intervention PY - 2010/Mar/ PB - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) CY - Bonn T2 - IZA Discussion Paper IS - 4852 UR - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp4852 AB - When a multi-plant firm must close one unit due to declining demand it can choose between two alternatives. On the one hand, the firm can announce a certain span of time in which the plants are evaluated according to relative performance with the least performing plant being shut down in the end (shutdown contest). On the other hand, the firm can use given information on the plants' productivities and close the least productive unit. This paper analyzes the selection and incentive properties of both alternatives. Multi-plant firms often operate in an international industry. Hence, in a second step we discuss the effects of governmental support for domestic plants on selection efficiency. KW - auction KW - collective tournament KW - plant closing KW - governmental intervention ER -