On the Impact of Piracy on Innovation in the Presence of Technological and Market Uncertainty

This paper analyses the effect of piracy on innovation in the presence of R&D competition with technological and market uncertainty. With a single innovating firm facing technological uncertainty, piracy unambiguously retards innovation. However, with R&D competition where firms face market and technological uncertainties, we show that piracy may enhance overall innovation. We also show that if the difference between the probabilities of success of the innovating firms is relatively large then piracy enhances the R&D investment and profit of the less efficient firm.