We analyze innovation race in a moral hazard setting. We develop a model in which two competing entrepreneurs work independently on the same project. The entrepreneurs do not possess any wealth of their own and their research is financed by a venture capitalist. The project, if successful, generates a prize, which is to be shared between the winning entrepreneur and the venture capitalist. The venture capitalist cannot observe the allocation of funds he provides, which creates a moral hazard problem. We compare a competitive setting with a benchmark case where the venture capitalist finances only one entrepreneur. We show that the venture capitalist can increase the efficiency of research (hence, his own expected profit from investments) and alleviate the moral hazard problem if he finances both entrepreneurs. This conclusion is unambiguous, when the entrepreneurs are at the same (the last) stage of R&D. It holds for a reasonably large range of parameters, when the entrepreneurs are at different stages of R&D.
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Paper provided by University of Bonn, Germany in its series Bonn Econ Discussion Papers with number
bgse37_2005.
Length: 51 Date of creation: Dec 2005 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:bon:bonedp:bgse37_2005
Contact details of provider: Postal: Bonn Graduate School of Economics, University of Bonn, Adenauerallee 24 - 26, 53113 Bonn, Germany Fax: +49 228 73 9221 Web page: http://www.bgse.uni-bonn.de/index.php?id=494
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Reinganum, Jennifer F., .
"Dynamic Games of Innovation,"
Working Papers
287, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
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