This Paper presents a model of innovations and economic growth, in which patent rates emerge endogenously, as a result of two assumptions: first, R&D is innovation-specific, second, marginal cost of innovation is increasing. The Paper then examines the effects of patent races on growth, welfare,...

Patents act as an incentive to innovate. However, as this paper argues, patents can discourage some innovators from innovating, reducing knowledge spillovers. The combined result of the above suggests a concave relationship between patent protection and output growth.

In aggregative games, each playerʼs payoff depends on her own actions and an aggregate of the actions of all the players. Many common games in industrial organization, political economy, public economics, and macroeconomics can be cast as aggregative games. This paper provides a general and...

Where fines are the only available sanction against cartels there is a trade-off between increased deterrence and the increased risk of insolvency. Higher fines are unacceptable to the European Commission because of the costs and uncertainties associated with bankruptcy. These concerns have led...