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Quality Competition, Market Structure and Endogenous Growth

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Author Info
Jian Tong

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Abstract

This paper studies the role of quality competition in endogenous growth and institutional factors which can affect growth through affecting quality competition. The R&D-based growth literature as it stands attributes the incentives for innovations to monopolist market structure, and regards the driving force of growth being 'the rent-pull'. This paper presents a 'competition-push' theory of growth by considering an environment where firms can coexist and compete in quality within the same markets. Quality competition takes the form of vertical product differentiation or cost-reducing process innovation, which requires endogenous fixed R&D costs. Due to the nonrival and excludable features of 'quality' and consequent nonconvexity, market concentration naturally occurs in a manner such that R&D intensity and market structure are determined simultaneously in equilibrium. The main conclusions are that quality competition suffices to provide incentives for innovation at industry level, and through knowledge spillovers it also drives aggregate technical progress, that institutional restriction on free entry into quality competition may be desirable to some degree, but monopolization is usually not optimal, that credit constraint which limits quality competition is detrimental to growth.

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Paper provided by Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE in its series STICERD - Economics of Industry Papers with number 25.

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Date of creation: Sep 1999
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Handle: RePEc:cep:stieip:25

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Related research
Keywords: Endogenous growth; quality competition; vertical differentiation; endogenous sunk costs; competition-push; rent-pull; institutional barriers to entry; credit constraint;

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.:

  1. Krishna B. Kumar & Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, 1999. "What Determines Firm Size?," NBER Working Papers 7208, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. King, Robert G. & Levine, Ross, 1993. "Finance, entrepreneurship and growth: Theory and evidence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 513-542, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, 2001. "Financial Systems, Industrial Structure, and Growth," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 17(4), pages 467-482.
  4. Hellwig, Martin & Irmen, Andreas, 1999. "Endogenous Technical Change in a Competitive Economy," Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications 99-53, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim & Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim. [Downloadable!]
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  5. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Moore, John, 1997. "Credit Cycles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(2), pages 211-48, April.
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  6. Cohen, Wesley M. & Levin, Richard C., 1989. "Empirical studies of innovation and market structure," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 18, pages 1059-1107 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Dasgupta, Partha & Stiglitz, Joseph, 1980. "Industrial Structure and the Nature of Innovative Activity," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 90(358), pages 266-93, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Richard C. Levin & Alvin K. Klevorick & Richard R. Nelson & Sidney G. Winter, 1988. "Appropriating the Returns from Industrial R&D," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 862, Cowles Foundation, Yale University. [Downloadable!]
  9. King, Robert G & Levine, Ross, 1993. "Finance and Growth: Schumpeter Might Be Right," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 108(3), pages 717-37, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, 1996. "Financial Dependence and Growth," NBER Working Papers 5758, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Romer, Paul M, 1990. "Endogenous Technological Change," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages S71-102, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, 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.)

  1. John Sutton, 2001. "Rich Trades, Scarce Capabilities: Industrial Development Revisited," STICERD - Economics of Industry Papers 28, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE. [Downloadable!]
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