【正文】 Oxelheim et ).We evaluate the nature, incidence, and implications of such market segmentation for selected aspects of MNE financial management activity.It is clear from the context of our analysis that we believe financial factors to have important implications for the parative advantage of MNEs located in different jurisdictions, and also that financial management plays a critical role in deciding an MNE’s petitive prosperity. This belief is supported by surveys of MNEs (Rawls and Smithson 1990。 Gray et 。 we illustrate with only two markets and potential entrants. Then in the second stage, the incumbent decides pricing policy whether to practice local (L) or uniform (U) pricing. There is no mitment stage. The equilibrium concept is subgame perfection. Hence, in determining its move, the entrant (. E1) knows the payoffs facing the incumbent (I), as its aggregated profits (PI)。 and in each case there is a “repeat market.”2. The articles handled fall mainly in the class of necessities, or seminecessities. That is, they are regarded as essential by a proportion of the market large enough to insure a steady demand.3. Because of the standard character of the stocks, and the broad demand, a high rate of turnover may be maintained, which allows the chain to make a small but steady margin of profit at frequent intervals.4. Buying or purchasing is standardized and centralized at headquarters.5. Since articles are of small unit value, and not bulky or heavy, the chain store is able to operate on a cash and carry basisa factor of great importance in chain store growth.6. Merchandising is largely a matter of display and price advertising.7. Standardization of methods has made it possible to centralize management at headquarters and control member stores under managers who, while they may have a pecuniary interest in sales made by their stores, have nothing to say about the conducting of them..Our analytic focus in this paper is the geographic scope of pricing. Specifically, is it better for a chainstore retailer to set prices according to local market conditions(reflecting differences in cost, demand and petition) or set mon prices that apply across all its stores, . adopt a uniform pricing policy? Are likely firm decisions on this in line with consumer preferences? In contrast to the entry deterrence issue considered by Selten (1978), Milgrom and Roberts (1982) and Kreps and Wilson(1982), we look to see whether pricing policy, other than deterring entry, might instead be employed strategically to acmodate entry when it is inevitable. The geographic scope for pricing is a very real issue for multiple retailers. It is evident that in practice some chainstore groups adopt uniform pricing while others do not. In some sectors, all multiple retailers price identically across their stores, . UK electrical goods retailers (MMC, 1997a,b). While in other sectors, local pricing is practised to the extent that product prices might vary considerably from one store to another, . the FTC found that for office supply superstores average prices varied by as much 16% depending on the extent of local petition in the US. Moreover, this pricing policy distinction applies not just to different sectors but can apply within the same sector, . amongst UK supermarkets where, of the leading fifteen groups, eight priced uniformly while seven priced according to local conditions (Competition Commission, 2000). Yet, in these days of puterbased pricing systems, it can hardly be said that ticketing costs are high, or that local demand and cost conditions cannot be effectively gauged. Hence, choosing a uniform price must be seen as a conscious act. Of course, uniform pricing might not be practicable when retailing costs are substantially different from one area to another. Nevertheless, for many multiple retailers both local and uniform pricing might be feasible but a choice has to be made on which to adopt. This leads to two questions, first why it might ever be preferable for the incumbent to impose a constraint on its own behaviour, and second the circumstances under which the constraint is desirable. Our key insight on the first question is as follows: A firm will find itself more under petition in some markets than others. By practicing uniform pricing, it softens petition between itself and rival players. This entails setting a higher price in those markets subject to (more) petition, at the expense of lower prices in markets where it is not subject (or is less subject) to petition, pared with a practice of marketspecific pricing. The higher price in turn makes the action one which rivals find attractive, so it does not require agreement. Thus if the markets under petition are important enough to the firm, its net gain is positive. Hence our paper’s prime focus is on the parameters associated with the nature and intensity of petition that might influence this choice. There is some monality in this issue with related questions on thirddegree price discrimination in oligopoly (. Holmes, 1989). More specifically, the issues raised here tie in with why oligopolistic firms would wish to limit or even entirely avoid price discrimination, . Winter (1997) and Corts (1998), or adopt practices which provide the same oute, notably contemporaneous MFC clauses, . DeGraba (1987) and Besanko and Lyon (1993). There are obvious links between our paper and Corts (1998) which also considers the question of uniform versus discriminatory pricing under duopoly (within a rather different framework). However, in Corts’ model, it turns out that it is usually not in a firm’s unilateral interest to practise uniform pricing. Therefore, where uniform pricing is profitable, strategic mitments not to price discriminate are normally involved and hence discussion focuses on the form these might take. By contrast, within our framework, and for a specified range of parameters, we find that it is in the firm’s o