Existing models of R&D are not easily reconciled with four observable aspects of R&D: initial technologies ('ideas') need to be developed further, only a minority of initial ideas is successfully brought to the market, production and process innovations take place simultaneously (whereby,...

This paper extends the Schumpeterian model of creative destruction by allowing followers' cost of innovation to increase in their technological distance from the leader. This assumption is motivated by the observation the more technologically advanced the leader is, the harder it is for a...

We investigate the optimal R&D portfolio of a single-product monopolist investing in cost-reducing activities accompanied by efforts improving the quality of its product. There emerges that the firm's relative incentives along the two directions are conditional upon market affluency, measured by...

I investigate a simple model of advance-purchase contracts as a mode of financing costly projects. An entrepreneur has to meet some capital requirement in order to start production and sell the related good to a limited number of potential buyers who are privately informed about their...

I investigate a simple model of advance-purchase contracts as a mode of financing costly projects. The analysis can easily be reinterpreted as a model of the monopolistic provision of excludable public goods under private information. An entrepreneur has to meet some capital requirement in order...

We investigate the optimal R&D portfolio of a single-product monopolist investing in cost-reducing activities accompanied by efforts improving the quality of its product. There emerges that the firm's relative incentives along the two directions are conditional upon market affluency, measured by...