Research and Development with Asymmetric Firm Sizes

Richard Rosen

RAND Journal of Economics, 1991, vol. 22, issue 3, 411-429

Abstract: This article presents a theoretical model of research and development (R&D) competition among firms. The goal of the model is to simultaneously explain two empirical observations pertaining to the persistence of dominant firms: small firms make a disproportionate share of major innovations, while large firms tend to spend more (in absolute terms) on R&D than small firms do. In the model here, firms choose investment levels and R&D project riskiness. In equilibrium, a large firm invests more than a smaller firm but, by choosing safer R&D projects, makes fewer major innovations.

Date: 1991
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (70)

Downloads: (external link)
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0741-6261%2819912 ... O%3B2-4&origin=repec full text (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.

Related works:
Working Paper: Research and development with asymmetric firm sizes (1988)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rje:randje:v:22:y:1991:i:autumn:p:411-429

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://editorialexp ... i-bin/rje_online.cgi

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in RAND Journal of Economics from The RAND Corporation
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().