This is a preliminary version of a prospective book which springs from concerted effort among several researchers in the fiels of industrial economics. This chapter is devoted to the strategic role of information in oligopoly, and more broadlyn, in monotone games in general.

This paper investigates the endogenous choice between price- and quantity-setting behaviour in a duopoly game where firms invest in product development first, and then play a marketing game later. Only in the initial R&D stage, the two firms set up a joint venture in order to share the costs of...

Risky research projects are, other things being equal, intrinsically harder to monitor than those which are less risky. It is shown using agency theory that a standard cost benefit project analysis which ignores the agency problem will introduce a bias towards excessively risky projects.

The effect of merger between competing firms in the same industry is twofold. It increases concentration, which has a negative effect on welfare unless the merger substantially lowers production costs. If products are differentiated, however, there is another effect: before the product is...

This paper examines the determinants of R&D expenditure for very large public Australian-owned manufacturing firms. A non-linear relationship was found between R&D intensity and the level of appropriability, which was proxied by market share.

We characterise the interplay between oligopolistic firms' strategic decisions in product development, and their incentives for (or against) merger. In an R&D intensive industry where newly developed products can be awarded exclusive patent protection, individual firms' profit maximisation can...

Risky research projects are, other things being equal, intrinsically harder to monitor than those which are less risky. It is shown, using agency theory that a standard cost benefit analysis which ignores the agency problem will introduce a bias towards excessively risky projects.

We characterize the interplay between firm's decisions in product development, be it joint or independent, and their ensuing repeated price behaviour, either collusive or Bertrand-Nash. We prove that joint-product development and the resulting lack of horizontal differentiation may destabilise...