上游垄断背景下厂商提成特许策略研究

在原料供应厂商占据垄断地位的假设下,通过对比下游创新厂商提成特许前后的收益,对下游创新厂商的特许策略选择和创新激励进行了研究。研究结果表明:当技术创新规模较小时,下游创新厂商进行技术创新的激励增大,会对下游其他无创新的厂商进行技术特许;当技术创新规模较大时,下游创新厂商则不会进行技术特许。     

Licensing versus assignment: Innovation transfer in an asymmetric duopoly

Suppose that the relatively inefficient firm in an asymmetric duopoly market develops a nondrastic process innovation. To maximize returns on the innovation, the innovator must determine the most lucrative commercial policy. Should it be in‐house exploitation, or licensing or assignment? It turns out that the innovator never uses innovation exclusively. The choice of licensing or assignment depends on the size of the initial cost difference. When the initial cost difference is relatively small, the innovator would resort to licensing, whereas when there is a significant initial cost gap, the innovator would rather assign the property rights of the innovation to the rival. In the case of assignment, the assignee may license the innovation back to the assignor. With the option of reverse licensing, an assignment will always be more profitable than (direct) licensing. Interestingly, if the initial cost gap were sufficiently large, the innovator would exit the market postassignment, and thus act as an outside nonoperating licensor.     

Oligopoly with a large number of competitors: asymmetric limit result

We address how profitable innovation is in a competitive market by investigating the asymmetric oligopoly model in which 1 firm (innovator) has a cost advantage that is not drastic enough for her to become a monopolist, and by inducing asymmetric limit outcomes when the number of the other firms (laggard firms) goes to infinity. If the innovator is the Stackelberg leader, two cases can arise: (i) the innovator behaves as in the competitive market or (ii) she occupies the entire market but cannot make the price. If we consider Cournot competition, the innovator becomes the partial monopolist. An erratum to this article can be found at     

考虑革新程度认知差异的新产品技术授权研究

建立博弈模型，探讨技术革新认知差异情形下，外部技术创新者向寡占竞争格局的生产企业授权生产新产品专利的最优决策问题。研究发现，创新授权者关于新产品市场的认知劣势使固定收费契约不具备完全优于特许权收费契约的绝对优势；在双重收费契约下，专利人授权对象选择因认知差异影响，由排他性授权向非排他性授权决策转变；认知差异性削弱了创新企业市场势力，从而提高特许权收费契约优势，而拍卖、股权投资等有助于创新企业克服认知劣势。据此，建议创新企业明晰创新专利长期回报，综合搭配应用多种授权契约；以非排他性授权策略配合特许权收费、双重收费和股权投资等契约模式，实现技术交易产业链激励共容下的利润最大化，促进技术创新传播应用，提高社会福利水平。     

Should environmental R&D be prioritized?

An innovator may not be able to capture the full social benefit of her innovation and, therefore, governments support private R&D through various measures. We compare a market good innovation—to develop a more efficient technology to produce a standard market good—with an environmental innovation—to develop a more efficient abatement technology—that has the same potential to increase the social surplus. In the first-best outcome, which can be achieved by offering an R&D subsidy and a diffusion subsidy, the R&D subsidy should be greatest for an environmental innovation, whereas the diffusion subsidy should be greatest for a market good innovation. The ranking of the two types of subsidies reflects that the appropriability problem is greater for an environmental innovation than for a market good innovation.     

Stackelberg竞争结构中质量提高型创新技术授权和企业兼并

本文基于Stackelberg双头垄断竞争模型,分析比较了质量提高型创新技术拥有企业的技术授权策略和企业兼并。研究结果表明:不论技术拥有企业是市场先行者还是跟随者,其总是偏向于企业兼并,而不会选择固定费用授权方式;如果政府禁止企业的兼并行为,那么当技术拥有企业在市场中是产量跟随者时,其愿意以提成许可方式进行技术授权;从社会福利角度考虑,技术授权可提高社会福利,而企业兼并一般不利于社会福利的提高,只有当创新技术拥有企业是Stackelberg竞争结构中的产量跟随者且其创新规模较大时,企业兼并才可提高社会福利。     

Financial markets, specialization, and learning by doing

This paper considers three questions: (1) what is the role of financial markets in development, (2) why do some economies have such poorly developed financial markets, and (3) can government policy be used to promote financial market development? With respect to the first question, we formalize the widely-held notion that financial markets promote entrepreneurship, specialization, and learning-by-doing. However, if economic incentives for specialization are absent, financial markets may fail to form. This occurs when real interest rates are too low. We also discuss policies that can be used to promote financial market development. When these policies are successful, they will be growth promoting. Finally, we examine policies intended to manipulate returns on savings, which are often important components of “financial liberalizations”. We describe conditions under which such policies will be conducive to growth.     

Commercialization of a demand-enhancing innovation: The release of a new apple variety by a public university

The upsurge of patented fruit varieties developed by university plant-breeding programs motivated this re-examination of optimal commercialization strategies when an innovator cares about profits for both itself and the licensees. Our theoretical findings suggest that the optimal licensing arrangement that maximizes weighted joint profits depends on the innovation level size, number of firms, and the weights assigned to the innovator and licensee profits. We designed an experiment to test the case with a small number of firms and found that the joint profits are the greatest under an exclusive per-unit royalty scheme. However, when the number of firms is large, as may be the case for a varietal introduction into the U.S. apple industry, our model suggests that the joint profits will be the largest under a nonexclusive contract, either with a two-part tariff, if the innovation level is high, or a per-unit royalty if the innovation level is low.     

The distribution of demand, market structure, and investment in technology

In a quality-ladder growth model, the dispersion in the demand for quality influences the prices innovators may charge for their innovations and the number of such firms that may obtain market shares at any one time. Under a more dispersed distribution, the innovator may only charge a lower price to cover the entire market. The payoff to innovation declines, causing investment to fall. When the dispersion has reached a critical level, the innovator will no longer price out the incumbents, turning the market into a natural oligopoly with firms selling different grades co-existing at any one time, even if it is optimal for all consumers to buy the highest grade available. Any further increases in dispersion raise the payoff to innovation, inducing greater investment.     

Patent Protection,Innovation and Technology Licensing

We show that the common wisdom suggesting higher investment in innovation under a stronger patent protection may not be true if the innovator can license its technology ex‐post innovation. If the initial cost of production is high and the slope of the marginal cost of undertaking innovation is moderate, investment in innovation is maximised at a patent protection that is weaker than the strongest patent protection. Otherwise, strongest patent protection maximises investment in innovation. We also show that welfare is maximised neither at the strongest patent protection nor at the weakest patent protection but at an intermediate patent protection. Our results are important for patent policies.     

Licensing under convex costs

We show that both the outside and inside innovators license a new product (or drastic process innovation) to all potential licensees in the presence of convex costs, which occur under decreasing returns to scale technologies. An implication of our analysis is that a monopolist producer may prefer technology licensing in a homogeneous goods industry. We also show that an inside innovator’s incentive for innovation may be higher than that of an outside innovator.     

The costs of uncoordinated regulation

Patents encourage firms to undertake research and development by protecting innovator revenues from competition. Controls on pollution of the environment are intended to close the gap between the private and social costs of natural resource use. This paper examines the incentives that are created by the interaction of these two separate pieces of regulation. A model is developed that shows how an incumbent, patent-holding firm can take advantage of environmental regulation to exclude rivals from her market.     

排他性与非排他性策略下创新授权契约机制研究

分析了不完全信息下,拥有提高产品质量技术的创新企业,在（非）排他性授权策略下,向进行Cournot竞争生产低质量产品的生产企业技术授权的契约优化问题。研究表明,在排他性授权策略下,双重收费契约下信息不完全能使接受授权生产企业赢取更多的创新企业特许权补贴;在非排他性授权策略下,不完全信息能够削弱创新企业通过双重收费契约设计对产品间接市场的垄断程度。在排他性授权交易下,信息不完全使特许权收费契约优于固定收费契约成为可能,这不同于Li and Wang的研究结论。基于提高社会创新能力视角,政府应鼓励创新企业更多采用特许权收费授权契约,削弱信息不对称的影响,赢取更多研发投资利润回报。     

Equivalence between fixed fee and ad valorem profit royalty

For an outside innovator with a finite number of buyers of the innovation, this paper compares two licensing schemes: (i) fixed fee, in which a licensee pays a fee to the innovator and (ii) ad valorem profit royalty, in which a licensee leaves a fraction of its profit with the innovator. We show these two schemes are equivalent in that for any number of licenses the innovator puts for sale, these two schemes give the same licensing revenue. We obtain this equivalence result in a general model with minimal structure. It is then applied in a Cournot oligopoly for an outside innovator. Finally, in a Cournot duopoly it is shown that when the innovator is one of the incumbent firms rather than an outsider, the equivalence result does not hold.     

Strategic R&D and the innovation of products: understanding the role of time preferences and product differentiation

We evaluate the effects of innovation on competition using an optimal control approach that incorporates firms' time preferences. Using a model where firm(s) innovates by investing in research and development to create a more appealing product for heterogeneous consumers, we examine conditions that maximize social welfare. When firm(s) choose discount rate regardless of market structure, a monopoly will develop more innovative products. However, we show that duopolies may increase innovation if competition alters firms' outlook. Finally, we identify firm incentives to behave myopically, which in the context of collusion may impede industry-wide innovation.     

On the incentives for cooperative research

This paper analyzes incentives for cooperative research for firms competing in the product market. Contrary to the literature, we portray situations to show that non-cooperative R&D can occur even if the probability of success in R&D is large. We then model synergy in cooperative R&D and show that when the innovation size is large, cooperative research is likely to occur.     

Pre-commercial procurement,procurement of innovative solutions and innovation partnerships in the EU: rationale and strategy

We discuss public procurement instruments for acquiring innovation, focusing on the European Pre-commercial Procurement, Procurement of Innovative Solutions and Innovation Partnerships. We analyse, in particular, how firms’ innovation incentives are affected by: (i) economies of scope and externalities between R&D and large-scale production; (ii) the degree of specificity of the innovation; (iii) the presence of Small and Medium Enterprises in the market and the level of market competition; (iv) the risk of market foreclosure and supplier lock-in. Our study contributes to the literature on incentives in demand-side innovation policy by tapping into the contractual design features and by offering relevant implications for academics and policy-makers.     

Possibility of relicensing and patent protection

We examine the effects of patent protection, paying attention to its role of prohibiting relicensing. We focus on two questions. First, whether does the innovator have an incentive of licensing the concealable (easily kept secret, if not licensed) innovation in the case where patent protection is absent? Second, what effects does patent protection have upon the innovator's payoff and the consumers' welfare? Principal findings include the following: In the case of nondrastic innovations in the sense of Arrow, the innovator has an incentive of licensing even without patent protection. Patent protection generally benefits the innovator, but may cause damage to the consumers for large innovations. For drastic innovations, patent protection has no influence on licensing: Licensing never takes place regardless of whether it is provided or not.     

Complementarities in innovation policy

This paper develops a framework for testing discrete complementarities in innovation policy using European data on obstacles to innovation. We propose a discrete test of supermodularity in innovation policy leading to a number of inequality constraints. We apply our test to two types of innovation decisions: to innovate or not, and if so, by how much. We find that the evidence regarding the existence of complementarity in innovation policies depends on the phase of innovation that is targeted (getting firms innovative or increasing their innovation intensity) as well as on the particular pair of policies that is being considered. The two phases of the innovation process, i.e. the probability of becoming an innovator and the intensity of innovation, are subject to different constraints. Interestingly, there seems to be a need to adopt a package of policies to make firms innovate, while a more targeted choice among policies is necessary to make them more innovative.