We investigate rewards to R&D in a model where substitute ideas for innovation arrive to random recipients at random times. By foregoing investment in a current idea, society as a whole preserves an option to invest in a better idea for the same market niche, but with delay. Because successive...

This paper analyses the policy implications of licensing between producers of differentiated goods. We consider and compare two-part tariff, fixed fee royalty and collusive licensing contracts. Under the optimal licensing policy, there will be no technology transfers if the innovation size is...

This paper analyses the policy implications of licensing between producers of differentiated goods. We consider and compare two-part tariff, fixed fee, royalty and collusive licensing contracts. Under the optimal licensing policy, there will be no technology transfers if the innovation size is...

We consider a model of the innovative environment where there is a distinction between ideas for R&D investments and the investments themselves. We investigate the optimal reward policy and how it depends on whether ideas are scarce or obvious. By foregoing investment in a current idea, society...

This paper builds a theoretical foundation for the dynamics of knowledge sharing in private industry. In practice, research and development projects can take years or even decades to complete. We model an uncertain research process, where research projects consist of multiple sequential steps....

Optimal patent breadth is an issue that is still being vigorously debated at both the theoretical and empirical levels. This paper analyzes optimal patent policy in the context of cumulative innovation in a model that endogenizes the patenting decisions of early innovators. In the theoretical...

The goal of this paper is to explore how the demand for specific investments may affect the product variety in a bilateral duopolistic industry. In the literature on the hold-up problem, it is generally assumed that the degree of specificity of investments is either exogenously determined or...

This paper considers the potential for the cultural transmission of attitudes toward work, welfare, and individual responsibility to explain the intergenerational correlation in welfare receipt. Specifically, we investigate whether 18-year olds’ views about social benefits and the drivers of...