Abstract:
This article considers the sale by a research lab of licences for a cost-reducing innovation. The marginal cost of a firm that wins a licence is private information and the acquisition of a licence imposes a negative externality on the other firms. The lab's optimal revenue is determined from a class of mechanisms in which the lab selects the number of licences and the reserve price before the sale. The role of the downstream product market in the determination of the number of licences is analyzed. Furthermore, it is also shown that the optimal reserve price may be zero.
JEL-codes:D82L13 (search for similar items in EconPapers) Date: 2008
Canadian Journal of Economics is edited by David Green
More articles in Canadian Journal of Economics from Canadian Economics Association Address: Canadian Economics Association Prof. Steven Ambler, Secretary-Treasurer c/o Olivier Lebert, CEA/CJE/CPP Office C.P. 35006, 1221 Fleury Est Montréal, Québec, Canada H2C 3K4 Contact information at EDIRC. Series data maintained by Prof. Werner Antweiler ().
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