This paper studies R&D investment decisions of a firm facing the threat of new technology entry and subject to technical uncertainty. We distinguish four scenarios: inevitable entry, entry deterrence, entry blockade, and non-credible entry threat. The entry threat stimulates the incumbent to...

This paper presents a dynamic model of a competitive R&D and production duopoly subject to knowledge spillovers. Two asymmetric firms operate for a limited period of time and dispose their knowledge capital in the end. Both firms and the social planner prefer the R&Dcooperative strategy over the...

This paper discusses the strategic role of mismatching, where players voluntarily form inefficient teams or forego the formation of efficient teams, respectively. Strategic mismatching can be rational when players realize a competitive advantage (e.g. harming other competitors). In addition, the...

Vega-Redondo (1997) showed that imitation leads to the Walrasian outcome in Cournot Oligopoly. We generalize his result to aggregative quasi-submodular games. Examples are the Cournot Oligopoly, Bertrand games with differentiated complementary products, Common- Pool Resource games, Rent-Seeking...

In the economic literature on market competition, firms are often modeled as single decision makers and the internal organization of the firm is neglected (unitary player assumption). However, as the literature on strategic delegation suggests, one can not generally expect that the behavior of...

We present a model where firms make competitive decisions about the optimal duration (or time to build) of their R&D projects. Choosing its project's duration, the firm can choose to become a leader or a follower, based on its R&D efficiency, the size of the R&D to be carried out and the degree...

We present a formal model of symmetric n-firm Cournot oligopoly with a heterogeneous population of profit optimizers and imitators. Imitators mimic the output decision of the most successful firms of the previous round a la Vega-Redondo (1997). Optimizers play myopic best response to the...

Transparency in teams can induce cooperation. We study contribution decisions by agents when previous decisions can be observed. We find that an information chain, in which each agent directly observes only the decision of her immediate predecessor, is at least as effective as a...

This paper characterizes long-run outcomes for broad classes of symmetric games, when players select actions on the basis of average historical performance. Received wisdom is that when agent's interests are partially opposed, behavior is excessively competitive: ``keeping up with the Jones' ''...

Taxation under oligopoly is analysed in a general equilibrium setting where the firms are large relative to the size of the economy and maximise the utility of their shareholders. It turns out that the model is an aggregative game, which simplifies the comparative statics for the effects of...