An important discussion in recent years is the introduction of product patentsand the abolition of process patents. In a model with endogenous number of innovatingfirms, we show that whether product patent increases R&D is ambiguous, and depends onthe type of market demand and the cost of R&D....

We consider the plant location decision of a multinational corporation (MNC), which has the option to invest in a more or in a less technologically lagging country, and which aims to use its foreign plant as an export-platform. We show that the plant location decision of the MNC depends on...

It is usually believed that higher competition, implying more active firms, benefits consumers. We show that this may not be the case in an industry with asymmetric cost firms. A rise in the number of more cost inefficient firms makes the consumers worse-off in the presence of a welfare...

We analyze the location of final goods producers under spatial competition with strategic input price determination by firm-specific input suppliers when the final goods producers undertake complete outsourcing or bi-sourcing. Under complete outsourcing, the final goods producers locate closer...

We show that the entry of private profit-maximising firms makes the consumers worse off compared to having a nationalised monopoly. Such entry increases the nationalised firm’s profit, industry profit, and social welfare, at the expense of the consumers. Our result is important for competition...

We show that a monopolist final goods producer may find it profitable to create competition by licensing its technology if the input market is imperfectly competitive. With a centralized union, we show that licensing by a monopolist is profitable under both uniform and discriminatory wage...

Taking technological differences between firms as given, we show that the technologically advanced firm has a stronger incentive for technology licensing under a decentralized unionization structure than with centralized wage setting. Furthermore, We show that, in presence of licensing, the...

In a recent paper, Alipranti et al. (2014, Price vs. quantity competition in a vertically related market, Economics Letters, 124: 122-126) show that in a vertically related market Cournot competition yields higher social welfare compared to Bertrand competition if the upstream firm subsidises...

We study the implications of credit constraints for the sustainability of product market collusion in a bank-financed oligopoly in which firms face an imperfect credit market. We consider two situations, without and with credit rationing, i.e., with a binding credit limit. When there is credit...

In this article, we consider technology leaders (which are innovators) and technology followers (which are non-innovators) to provide a new theoretical explanation for the well-cited empirical evidence of an inverted-U relationship between competition and aggregate innovation. We consider a...