Defensive strategies in quality ladders

This paper analyses the potentially defensive behaviour of patent-race winners and the ensuing effect on aggregate R&D effort. We propose a quality-ladder model where leaders strategically acquire a technology advantage and are able to innovate. In this context, product-market regulation, by affecting this strategic behaviour, may have either a positive or negative effect on aggregate R&D intensity. The negative effect is likely to pertain in liberal markets, whereas the positive influence arises in more regulated environments, and can be stronger for larger jumps in innovation. These steady-state equilibrium outcomes are consistent with the puzzling patterns in data from manufacturing industries in 14 OECD countries over the 1987–2003 period.