Cooperation in Knowledge Sharing and R&D Investment

This paper reports a laboratory experiment that provides insights on cooperation in R&D investment when knowledge sharing decisions are endogenous. Specifically, there are two types of treatments: one in which participants decide on whether to share knowledge before they make their investment decisions and one where the knowledge sharing constellation is exogenously given, both with and without non-binding communication. The results show that there are behavioural spillovers between the decisions on knowledge sharing and investment. When exogenously set, the degree of knowledge sharing does not affect cooperation. Communication increases cooperation more when participants can decide on knowledge sharing