On the Winner-Take-All Principle in Innovation Races

Vincenzo Denicolo' () and Luigi Alberto Franzoni

Journal of the European Economic Association, 2010, vol. 8, issue 5, 1133-1158

Abstract: What is the optimal allocation of prizes in an innovation race? Should the winner take all, or is it preferable that the original inventor shares the market with subsequent independent duplicators? Some recent papers in law and economics have argued that the latter, more permissive solution is socially preferable under mild conditions. We re-examine that issue, arguing that a permissive regime may turn the innovation race into a waiting game, reducing the power of incentives, and may invite socially wasteful duplicative R&D expenditures. In a model that accounts for these effects, the winner-take-all system turns out to be preferable in a broad set of circumstances, especially in highly innovative industries. (JEL: K11, L1, O34) (c) 2010 by the European Economic Association.

JEL-codes: K11 L1 O34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

Downloads: (external link)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1542-4774/issues link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
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:tpr:jeurec:v:8:y:2010:i:5:p:1133-1158

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of the European Economic Association is currently edited by Xavier Vives, George-Marios Angeletos, Orazio P. Attanasio, Fabio Canova and Roberto Perotti

More articles in Journal of the European Economic Association from MIT Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by The MIT Press ().