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An Experimental Contribution to the Revision of the Guidelines on Research and Development Agreements

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  • Christoph Engel

    (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn)

Abstract

The European Commission is working on a revision of its Guidelines on Research and Development Agreements. On this occasion, this note surveys the existing experimental evidence. Experiments add a number of additional arguments to the normative assessment. R&D agreements have a much smaller effect on later competition in the product market if they serve as a substitute for incomplete (legal) protection of innovation effort. They may help firms settle the resulting fairness issue, and stay away from investment wars. Using the results from 107 published experiments on oligopoly, a meta-study shows that clearing an R&D agreement can be beneficial since it removes the additional collusion incentive resulting from fear that, through successful innovation, competitors might gain an advantage. This is the case if the opposite market side has countervailing power, and the more market conditions are stable. By contrast, the meta-data suggests that R&D agreements increase the risk of collusion in the product market if products are substitutes, if capacity cannot immediately be extended, if market participants may communicate, and if they are experienced; the latter two conditions are very likely to hold in the field.

Suggested Citation

  • Christoph Engel, 2010. "An Experimental Contribution to the Revision of the Guidelines on Research and Development Agreements," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2010_48, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
  • Handle: RePEc:mpg:wpaper:2010_48
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Antitrust; Innovation; research and development agreements; block exemption; oligopoly experiments; meta-study;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • K21 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Antitrust Law
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L41 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital

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