Beat 'em or Join 'em? Export Subsidies versus International Research Joint Ventures in Oligopolistic Markets

We compare adversarial with cooperative industrial and trade policies in a dynamic oligopoly game in which a home and foreign firm compete in R&D and output and, because of spillovers, each firm benefits from the other's R&D. When the government can commit to an export subsidy, such a policy raises welfare relative to cooperation, except when R&D is highly effective and spillovers are near-complete. Without commitment, however, subsidisation may yield welfare levels much lower than cooperation and lower even than free trade, though qualifications to the dangers from no commitment are noted.
JEL classification: F 12; F 13     

International R&D Rivalry and Industrial Strategy without Government Commitment

We examine optimal industrial and trade policies in a series of dynamic oligopoly games in which a home and a foreign firm compete in R&D and output. Alternative assumptions about the timing of moves and the ability of agents to commit intertemporally are considered. We show that the home export subsidy, R&D subsidy and welfarc are higher when government commitment is credible than in the dynamically consistent equilibrium without commitment. Commitment thus yields welfare gains (though they are small) but so does unanticipated reneging, whereas reneging which is anticipated by firms yields the lowest welfare of all.     

International R&D Networks

This paper considers the Goyal and Moraga‐Gonzalez (2001 ) model of strategic R&D collaboration networks in the open economy framework. The R&D is the d'Aspremont and Jacquemin (1988 ) process innovation and collaboration takes the form of research joint ventures (RJV) in which firms cooperate in R&D but compete in product markets. Countries decide whether to establish free‐trade links while firms decide whether and with whom to form RJVs. A double‐layer pairwise stability concept is introduced to characterize equilibrium network structures. In contrast with conventional wisdom, it is shown that global free trade generally reduces collaborative R&D levels. We give conditions for which pairwise stable R&D networks are welfare maximizing. Stability and efficiency are congruent when R&D cost is either too high or too low. A large public spillover effect is detrimental to an R&D network when trade networks are regional.     

Strategic Rivalry With Spillovers Within Segmented Versus Integrated Markets

We consider a two-stage game with firms investing in R&D in the first stage while competing [a] la Cournot in the second stage. The firms are located in two countries, which are either segmented or integrated. R&D spillovers occur between firms located in the same country as well as between firms located in different countries.

We first examine the consequences of market integration on the impact of national and international R&D spillovers on innovative efforts, effective R&D, profits and total welfare. Comparing the resulting equilibrium levels, we subsequently conclude that market integration always leads to higher R&D investments and output if international R&D spillovers are limited, while the welfare consequences are ambiguous. Finally, we also analyze the welfare maximization problem of a ‘constrained social planner who can only decide on the level of R&D spillovers.     

DEFECTING FROM R&D COOPERATION

This paper introduces defection into the strategic R&D model. In defecting, a firm cheats by choosing its R&D expenditures to maximise its own profits, instead of maximising the joint profits of the cooperating firms. Two cooperative environments are considered: R&D cartelisation, where firms coordinate R&D activities; and RJV cartelisation, where firms coordinate R&D activities and share information. Under R&D cartelisation, defection entails an increase (decrease) in R&D and effective spillovers for low (high) spillovers; whereas under RJV cartelisation, defection always entails a decrease in R&D and effective spillovers. Under R&D cartelisation, consumer surplus and total welfare increase (decrease) with defection when spillovers are low (high). Whereas consumer surplus and welfare always decrease with defection under RJV cartelisation. Under R&D cartelisation, the incentives for defection first decrease then increase with spillovers; they also increase with the size of the market, but decline with production costs and R&D costs. Moreover, the incentives for defection are higher under RJV cartelisation. With low spillovers under RJV cartelisation, a firm prefers to be subject to defection by the other firm, to not cooperating at all. Punishment for defection is considered, under the form of abstaining from information sharing.     

A North–South model of outsourcing and growth

In this paper, I formulate a simple North–South R&D‐based growth model where final goods firms in the North endogenously determine the range of international outsourcing of intermediate goods to the South. I show that a fall in the trade cost (through trade liberalization) of intermediate goods in the North: (i) reduces the wage of the North relative to that of the South; (ii) increases the outsourced variety of intermediate goods in the North; and (iii) stimulates Northern R&D activity and economic growth in both countries. By conducting welfare analysis, I also show that a decline in the trade cost of intermediate goods in the North improves welfare in the South more than in the North.     

Cross-Border Mergers as Instruments of Comparative Advantage

A two-country model of oligopoly in general equilibrium is used to show how changes in market structure accompany the process of trade and capital-market liberalization. The model predicts that bilateral mergers in which low-cost firms buy out higher-cost foreign rivals are profitable under Cournot competition. As a result, trade liberalization can trigger international merger waves, in the process encouraging countries to specialize and trade more in accordance with comparative advantage. With symmetric countries, welfare is likely to rise, though the distribution of income always shifts towards profits.     

Tariffs,R&D,and two merger policies

We compare welfare-increasing and consumer-surplus-increasing merger policies in an oligopoly when merging firms face endogenous trade policies, and engage in cost-reducing R&D activity. As R&D becomes less efficient, the equilibrium market structures (EMS) become less concentrated under both merger policies. When R&D is very efficient, monopoly becomes the EMS under the welfare-increasing merger policy. This occurs as the absence of tariff and efficient R&D under monopoly limit the price increase and the gain in profits outweighs the loss in consumer surplus and tariff revenue. The results suggest that trade policies should take into account merger policies and industries' R&D efficiency. The results also show that global welfare maximization requires global merger policy coordination.     

Merger policy in innovative industries

We analyze optimal merger policy in R&D-intensive industries with product innovation aiming to improve the quality of products. Our results suggest that a permissive merger policy is rarely optimal in high-tech industries when the antitrust authority considers a welfare standard that balances the impact of mergers on consumers’ surplus and firms’ profits. In particular, relative to a benchmark where the effects from R&D are absent, we show that the optimal merger policy should not be substantially more permissive in the presence of those effects from R&D.     

Strategic policies and growth: an applied model of R&D-driven endogenous growth

We introduce and explore a general equilibrium model with R&D-driven endogenous growth, whose antecedents are the models of Romer (1990) [Romer, P.M., 1990. Endogenous technological change. Journal of Political Economy, 98, S71-102] and Grossman and Helpman (1991) [Grossman, G.M., Helpman E., 1991. Innovation and Growth in the Global Economy, The MIT Press, Cambridge]. Utilizing evidence from recent econometric studies on sources of growth, the model also accounts explicitly for cross-border technological spillovers. The model is specified and calibrated to data from Japan, and is solved to obtain both the transitional and the steady-state equilibria. We explore the effects of selective trade and R&D promotion policies on long-run growth and social welfare. The model results suggest that while a strategic trade policy has little effect on re-allocating resources into domestic R&D activities, it can significantly affect the cross-border spillovers of technological knowledge, which, in turn, stimulates growth. We find that trade liberalization may cause the growth rate to fall and lead to a loss of social welfare in the long-run, although it improves welfare in the short-run. R&D promotion policies stimulate growth by inducing private agents to allocate more resources to domestic R&D, as well as to take greater advantage of global R&D spillovers. Here, we find significantly high growth effects together with sizable gains in social welfare at low incidence to tax payers.     

Advantages of backwardness and forwardness with shifting comparative advantage

This paper develops a multi-sector endogenous innovation model that is able to account for the dynamics of comparative advantage of each sector within the economy. The model in this paper assumes that two kinds of learning effects exist in R&D: advantages of backwardness and forwardness. It is shown that if the economy is divided into advanced and backward sectors, in the latter sectors, the advantage of backwardness dominates, leading to cyclic repetition of comparative advantage. However, in the former sectors, the advantage of forwardness becomes more significant, so comparative advantage among these sectors stabilizes. Thus, the direction of learning spillovers has a critical effect on the dynamics of comparative advantage. Given this result, it is shown that only R&D policies for the marginal sector are effective in facilitating economic growth. If a decision is made to facilitate R&D investment within advanced sectors, R&D taxes, rather than subsidies, should be imposed on this marginal sector. Moreover, it is shown that trade liberalization does not affect the intrinsic dynamics of comparative advantage among surviving sectors in the economy if the locus of this marginal sector does not change significantly after trade liberalization.     

Does a ‘non-committed’ government always generate lower social welfare than its ‘committed’ counterpart? Strategic trade policy when consumer surplus matters

We show that social welfare in the setup where the government lacks the full ability to commit to its trade policies may exceed the social welfare when the government possesses full commitment power if consumer surplus is part of the social welfare function. This is never the case in the standard, “third market” framework of strategic trade policy. We provide two examples in which consumer surplus matters: the “home market” and the “intra-industry trade” setup. The policy instruments under consideration are import tariffs and export subsidies and there are R&D spillovers from the domestic to the foreign firm.     

Trade Liberalization and Productivity Growth

This paper presents a trade model with firm‐level productivity differences and R&D‐driven growth. Trade liberalization causes the least productive firms to exit but also slows the development of new products. The overall effect on productivity growth depends on the size of intertemporal knowledge spillovers in R&D. When these spillovers are relatively weak, then trade liberalization promotes productivity growth in the short run and makes consumers better off in the long run. However, when these spillovers are relatively strong, then trade liberalization retards productivity growth in the short run and makes consumers worse off in the long run.     

R&D policy with layers of economic integration

This paper examines whether the optimal unilateral R&D policy for an open economy is a subsidy or a tax. It constructs a general equilibrium model with three successive layers of international integration: (a) trade in goods, (b) trade in technologies with international R&D spillovers and (c) internationally-coordinated R&D policy. Trade in technologies introduces the possibility that an R&D subsidy will have such strong, negative terms-of-trade effects that it harms domestic welfare. Numerical simulations of the OECD show this is a possibility for the US and Japan. With international R&D spillovers a domestic R&D subsidy may reduce domestic innovation.     

海外研发、贸易摩擦与创新绩效：来自中国高科技上市公司的经验证据

海外研发被视为后发国家实现技术赶超的有效路径,现有文献基于经贸自由化的前置条件证实了海外研发提升创新绩效的反哺作用。然而在全球贸易保护主义抬头的背景下,资源要素的自由流动愈发困难,海外研发能否发挥应有的作用尚不得而知。为此,基于中国高科技上市公司的数据,本文探索了中美贸易摩擦如何影响中国企业的海外研发绩效。研究发现,中美贸易摩擦非但没有侵蚀中国企业的海外研发绩效,反而产生倒逼效应,推动中国企业提升投资效率并积累国际投资经验,继而增强了海外研发的反哺作用。通过区分海外研发目的地,本文进一步发现倒逼效应在赴非美国家的样本中更显著。赴美研发受到贸易摩擦的冲击更为直接,稀释了提升投资效率和积累国际化经验所带来的收益。研究结论深化了国际商务理论关于贸易保护和壁垒如何影响跨国企业投资绩效的相关研究,为中国企业在高度不确定的投资环境下如何充分释放海外研发的潜能提供启示。     

Government Subsidies of R&D in a Product Cycle Framework: US–Japan Simulations

The welfare effects of R&D subsidies are examined using a product cycle model of trade between two developed countries. Simulations are done for steady-state welfare in Japan and the USA for high- and low-skilled labor over different combinations of subsidy rates. Japanese subsidies to R&D usually benefit Americans owing to an increase in product variety. However, because Japanese R&D reduces wages in the US high-tech sector, American high-skilled workers are hurt if Japanese subsidies are too large. Large American subsidies may cause Japanese innovation to cease. However, Japanese steady-state welfare would be maximized in this case.     

Endogenous Growth and Trade Liberalization Between Small and Large Countries

The paper combines insight from new trade theory and R&D-based endogenous growth models to argue that there are ambiguous growth effects of trade liberalization between countries that differ in terms of the size of their home markets. In particular, trade liberalization may reduce R&D incentives in countries with low purchasing power without invoking parallel increases in countries with high purchasing power. The paper also considers the case of imperfect international knowledge spillovers, and demonstrates that complete trade liberalization may affect the growth rate negatively.     

Creative destruction and unemployment in an open economy model

I develop a model of endogenous economic growth and search and matching frictions in the labour market. I study the effect of trade liberalization between two identical economies on long‐run unemployment and show that bilateral trade liberalization has a steady state effect on unemployment that is negative for countries with a relatively larger R&D sector and positive for countries with a smaller R&D sector.     

Endogenous Sunk Costs, Flexible Manufacturing and the Productivity Effects of International Trade

The paper addresses the productivity effects of international trade in the presence of flexible manufacturing and endogenous sunk costs (cost-reducing R&D). It shows that international trade raises R&D expenditures, but this will not necessarily boost productivity because of possibly counteracting market structure effects. The analysis is conducted in general equilibrium so that implications for real wages and welfare can also be addressed. Both can fall when trade leads to excessive R&D investment.     

LEGAL INSTITUTIONS,INNOVATION, AND GROWTH

We analyze the relationship between legal institutions, innovation, and growth. We compare a rigid legal system (the law is set before the technological innovation) and a flexible one (the law is set after observing the new technology). The flexible system dominates in terms of welfare, amount of innovation, and output growth at intermediate stages of technological development—periods when legal change is needed. The rigid system is preferable at early stages of technological development, when commitment problems are severe. For mature technologies, the two legal systems are equivalent. We find that rigid legal systems may induce excessive R&D investment.