It is shown in this paper that there exist cost innovations for which a monopolist has a higher incentive to invest than a social planner. This unveils the limits of the claim, based on Arrow (1959), that a monopoly always has a lower incentive to innovate than a social planner and therefore...

The impact of product variety on welfare has received little attention in the electronic commerce literature. The problem with product variety is that more variety does not necessarily imply higher welfare. This paper finds the conditions under which more variety, if caused by lower fixed costs,...

This paper evaluates the recent literature claiming that the US economy has generally become less competitive causing the US economy to perform poorly and that lax antitrust policy is one important reason for the decline in economic performance. Although there certainly are empirical facts...

Due to markup distortions, in international trade models with monopolistic competition and heterogeneous firms the market equilibrium is inefficient unless demand exhibits constant elasticity of substitution. When it does not, global welfare maximization generally requires policy intervention...

It is here shown that there exist cost innovations for which a monopolist has a higher incentive to invest than a social planner. This unveils the limits of the claim, based on Arrow (1959), that a monopoly always has a lower incentive to innovate than a social planner and therefore than...

Research joint ventures involve agreements among firms to engage in joint basic and applied research and development. This Article explores the importance of intellectual property rights in the formation of a research joint venture. The Article first considers the structural advantages afforded...