We examine whether owners' decisions to delegate responsibilities to overconfident managers improve welfare. We develop a duopoly model with product differentiation, where firms compete in research and development (R&D) and output . Before firms compete, each owner makes a strategic decision...

We derive Bertrand and Cournot equilibria in a differentiated duopoly in which each firm hires a manager to undertake research and development (R&D) and production decisions. We show that manager overconfidence and over-investment occur in each market competition. Furthermore, the Cournot game...