IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/germec/v9y2008i3p339-353.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Subsidizing Technological Innovations in the Presence of R&D Spillovers

Author

Listed:
  • Carsten Helm
  • Anja Schöttner

Abstract

. We analyze a situation where a principal wants to induce two firms to produce an output, for example electricity from renewable energy sources. Firms can undertake non‐contractible investments to reduce production cost of the output. Part of these investments spills over and also reduces production cost of the other firm. Comparing a general price subsidy and an innovation tournament, we find that the principal's expected cost of implementing a given expected output is always higher under the tournament, even though this scheme may lead to more innovation.

Suggested Citation

  • Carsten Helm & Anja Schöttner, 2008. "Subsidizing Technological Innovations in the Presence of R&D Spillovers," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 9(3), pages 339-353, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:germec:v:9:y:2008:i:3:p:339-353
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0475.2008.00436.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0475.2008.00436.x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1468-0475.2008.00436.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. d'Aspremont, Claude & Jacquemin, Alexis, 1988. "Cooperative and Noncooperative R&D in Duopoly with Spillovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(5), pages 1133-1137, December.
    2. Amir, Rabah, 2000. "Modelling imperfectly appropriable R&D via spillovers," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(7), pages 1013-1032, October.
    3. Jung, Chulho & Krutilla, Kerry & Boyd, Roy, 1996. "Incentives for Advanced Pollution Abatement Technology at the Industry Level: An Evaluation of Policy Alternatives," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 95-111, January.
    4. Fischer, Carolyn & Parry, Ian W. H. & Pizer, William A., 2003. "Instrument choice for environmental protection when technological innovation is endogenous," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 523-545, May.
    5. Lazear, Edward P, 1989. "Pay Equality and Industrial Politics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(3), pages 561-580, June.
    6. Jeroen Hinloopen, 2003. "R&D Efficiency Gains Due to Cooperation," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 80(2), pages 107-125, October.
    7. Partha Dasgupta & Joseph Stiglitz, 1980. "Uncertainty, Industrial Structure, and the Speed of R&D," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 11(1), pages 1-28, Spring.
    8. Suzumura, Kotaro, 1992. "Cooperative and Noncooperative R&D in an Oligopoly with Spillovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(5), pages 1307-1320, December.
    9. Tsur, Yacov & Zemel, Amos, 2002. "The Regulation of Environmental Innovations," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 242-260, September.
    10. Biglaiser, Gary & Horowitz, John K, 1995. "Pollution Regulation and Incentives for Pollution-Control Research," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(4), pages 663-684, Winter.
    11. Jeroen Hinloopen, 1997. "Subsidizing cooperative and noncooperative R&D in duopoly with spillovers," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 66(2), pages 151-175, June.
    12. Amir, Rabah, 1996. "Continuous Stochastic Games of Capital Accumulation with Convex Transitions," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 111-131, August.
    13. Tom Lee & Louis L. Wilde, 1980. "Market Structure and Innovation: A Reformulation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 94(2), pages 429-436.
    14. Kamien, Morton I & Muller, Eitan & Zang, Israel, 1992. "Research Joint Ventures and R&D Cartels," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(5), pages 1293-1306, December.
    15. Manne, Alan & Richels, Richard, 2004. "The impact of learning-by-doing on the timing and costs of CO2 abatement," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 603-619, July.
    16. Drago, Robert & Garvey, Gerald T, 1998. "Incentives for Helping on the Job: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(1), pages 1-25, January.
    17. Thomas P. Gehrig, 2004. "Organizational Form and Information Acquisition," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 160(1), pages 39-51, March.
    18. Mansfield, Edwin, 1985. "How Rapidly Does New Industrial Technology Leak Out?," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(2), pages 217-223, December.
    19. Barry J. Nalebuff & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1983. "Prices and Incentives: Towards a General Theory of Compensation and Competition," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 14(1), pages 21-43, Spring.
    20. Requate, Till & Unold, Wolfram, 2003. "Environmental policy incentives to adopt advanced abatement technology:: Will the true ranking please stand up?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 125-146, February.
    21. Richard L. Fullerton & R. Preston McAfee, 1999. "Auctioning Entry into Tournaments," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(3), pages 573-605, June.
    22. Glenn C. Loury, 1979. "Market Structure and Innovation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 93(3), pages 395-410.
    23. Miyagiwa, Kaz & Ohno, Yuka, 2002. "Uncertainty, spillovers, and cooperative R&D," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 855-876, June.
    24. Taylor, Curtis R, 1995. "Digging for Golden Carrots: An Analysis of Research Tournaments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(4), pages 872-890, September.
    25. Stephen Martin, 2002. "Spillovers, Appropriability, and R&D," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 75(1), pages 1-32, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gamal Atallah, 2014. "Conditional R&D subsidies," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(2), pages 179-214, March.
    2. Fabio Antoniou & Roland Strausz, 2014. "The Effectiveness of Taxation and Feed-in Tariffs," CESifo Working Paper Series 4788, CESifo.
    3. Lancker, Kira & Quaas, Martin F., 2019. "Increasing marginal costs and the efficiency of differentiated feed-in tariffs," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 104-118.
    4. Janina Reinkowski, 2014. "Empirical Essays in the Economics of Ageing and the Economics of Innovation," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 53.
    5. Andor, Mark & Voss, Achim, 2016. "Optimal renewable-energy promotion: Capacity subsidies vs. generation subsidies," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 144-158.
    6. Lehmann, Paul & Gawel, Erik, 2013. "Why should support schemes for renewable electricity complement the EU emissions trading scheme?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 597-607.
    7. Giebe, Thomas, 2014. "Innovation contests with entry auction," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 165-176.
    8. repec:zbw:rwirep:0473 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Reichenbach, Johanna & Requate, Till, 2012. "Subsidies for renewable energies in the presence of learning effects and market power," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 236-254.
    10. Fabio Antoniou & Roland Strausz, 2017. "Feed-in Subsidies, Taxation, and Inefficient Entry," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 67(4), pages 925-940, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Carsten Helm & Anja Schöttner, 2008. "Subsidizing Technological Innovations in the Presence of R&D Spillovers," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 9(3), pages 339-353, August.
    2. Erkal, Nisvan & Piccinin, Daniel, 2010. "Cooperative R&D under uncertainty with free entry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 74-85, January.
    3. Jonas Send, 2021. "Contest Copycats: Adversarial Duplication of Effort in Contests," Working Papers tax-mpg-rps-2021-17, Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance.
    4. Hauenschild, Nils, 2003. "On the role of input and output spillovers when R&D projects are risky," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(8), pages 1065-1089, October.
    5. Parry, Ian W H, 1998. "Pollution Regulation and the Efficiency Gains from Technological Innovation," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 229-254, November.
    6. Ishii, Akira, 2004. "Cooperative R&D between vertically related firms with spillovers," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 22(8-9), pages 1213-1235, November.
    7. Hélène Halmenschlager, 2004. "Les externalités de diffusion du savoir-faire permettent-elles de rattraper le retard dans les courses à l'innovation ?," Recherches économiques de Louvain, De Boeck Université, vol. 70(3), pages 341-361.
    8. Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay & Arijit Mukherjee, 2014. "R&D Cooperation with Entry," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 82(1), pages 52-70, January.
    9. Miyagiwa, Kaz & Ohno, Yuka, 2002. "Uncertainty, spillovers, and cooperative R&D," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 855-876, June.
    10. De Bondt, Raymond, 1997. "Spillovers and innovative activities," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 1-28, February.
    11. Strandholm, John C. & Espínola-Arredondo, Ana & Munoz-Garcia, Felix, 2018. "Regulation, free-riding incentives, and investment in R&D with spillovers," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 133-146.
    12. Raymond De Bondt & Jan Vandekerckhove, 2012. "Reflections on the Relation Between Competition and Innovation," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 7-19, March.
    13. Amir, Rabah & Wooders, John, 2000. "One-Way Spillovers, Endogenous Innovator/Imitator Roles, and Research Joint Ventures," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 1-25, April.
    14. Grunfeld, Leo A., 2003. "Meet me halfway but don't rush: absorptive capacity and strategic R&D investment revisited," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(8), pages 1091-1109, October.
    15. Buccella, Domenico & Fanti, Luciano & Gori, Luca, 2021. "A contribution to the theory of R&D investments," GLO Discussion Paper Series 940, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    16. Femminis Gianluca & Martini Gianmaria, 2010. "First-Mover Advantage in a Dynamic Duopoly with Spillover," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-46, November.
    17. Matros, Alexander & Smirnov, Vladimir, 2016. "Duplicative search," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 1-22.
    18. Hinloopen, J. & Smrkolj, G. & Wagener, F.O.O., 2013. "In Defense of Trusts: R&D Cooperation in Global Perspective," CeNDEF Working Papers 13-05, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Center for Nonlinear Dynamics in Economics and Finance.
    19. Arijit Mukherjee, 2005. "Innovation, Licensing And Welfare," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 73(1), pages 29-39, January.
    20. Jeroen Hinloopen & Grega Smrkolj & Florian Wagener, 2016. "R&D Cooperatives and Market Collusion: A Global Dynamic Approach," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 16-048/II, Tinbergen Institute.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • Q55 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Technological Innovation
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:germec:v:9:y:2008:i:3:p:339-353. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfsocea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.