Exit, the firm and sunk costs: reconceptualizing the corporate geography of disinvestment and plant closure

Abstract

The objective of this article is to reconceptualize understanding of the economic and spatial processes of corporate restructuring and market exit. We ask what economic logic explains plant closure and firms’ exit from industries, and develop a comprehensive perspective on the nature of the exit process focused on firms in which there is a separation of ownership and control, which are rich in capital assets and that are held hostage by their history and geography. Exit is treated as a sequence of related strategic decisions made by the firm regarding the use of its inherited configuration of capital, and we argue that there is an intimate connection between sunk costs and the logic of those decisions. The broader theoretical challenge addressed by the article concerns the provision of a coherent account of the spatial configuration of the firm in the context of the evolving world of corporate finance, corporate governance and capital specificity. These are important matters for economic geography.