Daniel Friedman Ryan Oprea Steven T. Anderson 2010 El Mutún, perhaps the world's largest remaining iron ore deposit, was opened to private investors in the 1980s but, due to the high cost of developing the remote Bolivian site, there were no takers for two decades. In late 2005, spurred by rising commodity prices, the Brazilian company EBX finally seized the opportunity, preempting rivals based in China and India. Numerous similar examples can be found in the annals of mining and oil companies (Raymond F. Mikesell et al. 1971). application/pdf 10.1257/aer.100.4.1778 en American Economic Association Preemption games: theory and experiment article