IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/indorg/v37y2014icp38-46.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Per unit vs. ad valorem royalties under asymmetric information

Author

Listed:
  • Heywood, John S.
  • Li, Jianpei
  • Ye, Guangliang

Abstract

We study an inside patent holder's optimal licensing policy when it has imperfect information about the value of the patent to its rival. The patent holder can choose any two-part licensing fee with either per unit or ad valorem royalties. We demonstrate that the equilibrium will be either a fully separating contract with different per unit royalty rates, or a contract with a single ad valorem royalty that excludes a high cost rival. Fixed fees will not be used. The presence of asymmetric information uniquely drives the per unit royalties that otherwise would not be adopted. Per unit royalties always generate higher social welfare than ad valorem royalties.

Suggested Citation

  • Heywood, John S. & Li, Jianpei & Ye, Guangliang, 2014. "Per unit vs. ad valorem royalties under asymmetric information," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 38-46.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:indorg:v:37:y:2014:i:c:p:38-46
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijindorg.2014.07.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167718714000642
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ijindorg.2014.07.005?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Saggi, Kamal & Vettas, Nikolaos, 2002. "On intrabrand and interbrand competition: The strategic role of fees and royalties," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 189-200, January.
    2. Fauli-Oller, Ramon & Sandonis, Joel, 2002. "Welfare reducing licensing," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 192-205, November.
    3. Vishwasrao, Sharmila, 2007. "Royalties vs. fees: How do firms pay for foreign technology?," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 741-759, August.
    4. San Martín, Marta & Saracho, Ana I., 2010. "Royalty licensing," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 284-287, May.
      • San Martín Lizarralde, Marta & Saracho de la Torre, Ana Isabel, 2009. "Royalty Licensing," IKERLANAK 6548, Universidad del País Vasco - Departamento de Fundamentos del Análisis Económico I.
    5. X. H. Wang & Bill Z. Yang, 1999. "On Licensing Under Bertrand Competition," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 106-119, June.
    6. Sen, Debapriya & Tauman, Yair, 2007. "General licensing schemes for a cost-reducing innovation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 163-186, April.
    7. Giebe, Thomas & Wolfstetter, Elmar, 2008. "License auctions with royalty contracts for (winners and) losers," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 91-106, May.
    8. Morton I. Kamien & Yair Tauman, 1986. "Fees Versus Royalties and the Private Value of a Patent," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(3), pages 471-491.
    9. Myerson, Roger B, 1979. "Incentive Compatibility and the Bargaining Problem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(1), pages 61-73, January.
    10. Charles J. Corbett & Deming Zhou & Christopher S. Tang, 2004. "Designing Supply Contracts: Contract Type and Information Asymmetry," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(4), pages 550-559, April.
    11. Changying Li & Junmei Wang, 2010. "Licensing a Vertical Product Innovation," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 86(275), pages 517-527, December.
    12. Inés Macho-Stadler & David Perez-Castrillo, 1991. "Contrats de licences et asymétrie d'information," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 24, pages 189-208.
    13. Stefano Colombo & Luigi Filippini, 2015. "Patent Licensing with Bertrand Competitors," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 83(1), pages 1-16, January.
    14. repec:bla:ausecp:v:38:y:1999:i:2:p:106-19 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Sen, Debapriya, 2005. "On the coexistence of different licensing schemes," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 393-413.
    16. Streb, Jochen, 2003. "Shaping the national system of inter-industry knowledge exchange: Vertical integration, licensing and repeated knowledge transfer in the German plastics industry," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1125-1140, June.
    17. Katharine E. Rockett, 1990. "Choosing the Competition and Patent Licensing," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(1), pages 161-171, Spring.
    18. Wang, X. Henry, 1998. "Fee versus royalty licensing in a Cournot duopoly model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 55-62, July.
    19. Nancy T. Gallini & Brian D. Wright, 1990. "Technology Transfer under Asymmetric Information," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(1), pages 147-160, Spring.
    20. Beggs, A. W., 1992. "The licensing of patents under asymmetric information," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 171-191, June.
    21. Bousquet, Alain & Cremer, Helmuth & Ivaldi, Marc & Wolkowicz, Michel, 1998. "Risk sharing in licensing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 535-554, September.
    22. Morton I. Kamien & Yair Tauman, 2002. "Patent Licensing: The Inside Story," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 70(1), pages 7-15, January.
    23. Macho-Stadler, Ines & Martinez-Giralt, Xavier & David Perez-Castrillo, J., 1996. "The role of information in licensing contract design," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 43-57, January.
    24. Shapiro, Carl, 1985. "Patent Licensing and R&D Rivalry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(2), pages 25-30, May.
    25. repec:adr:anecst:y:1991:i:24:p:08 is not listed on IDEAS
    26. Lin, Ping, 1996. "Fixed-Fee Licensing of Innovations and Collusion," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(4), pages 443-449, December.
    27. Niu, Shuai, 2013. "The equivalence of profit-sharing licensing and per-unit royalty licensing," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 10-14.
    28. Mukesh Eswaran, 1994. "Cross-Licensing of Competing Patents as a Facilitating Device," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 27(3), pages 689-708, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Sudipto Bhattacharya & Claude d’Aspremont & Sergei Guriev & Debapriya Sen & Yair Tauman, 2014. "Cooperation in R&D: Patenting, Licensing, and Contracting," International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, in: Kalyan Chatterjee & William Samuelson (ed.), Game Theory and Business Applications, edition 2, chapter 0, pages 265-286, Springer.
    2. Kabiraj, Abhishek & Kabiraj, Tarun, 2017. "Tariff induced licensing contracts, consumers’ surplus and welfare," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 439-447.
    3. Amir, Rabah & Encaoua, David & Lefouili, Yassine, 2014. "Optimal licensing of uncertain patents in the shadow of litigation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 320-338.
    4. Debapriya Sen & Giorgos Stamatopoulos, 2009. "Technology Transfer Under Returns To Scale," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 77(3), pages 337-365, June.
    5. Mukherjee, Arijit, 2010. "Licensing a new product: Fee vs. royalty licensing with unionized labor market," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 735-742, August.
    6. Bagchi, Aniruddha & Mukherjee, Arijit, 2014. "Technology licensing in a differentiated oligopoly," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 455-465.
    7. Nisvan Erkal, 2005. "Optimal Licensing Policy in Differentiated Industries," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 81(252), pages 51-60, March.
    8. Arijit Mukherjee, 2010. "Technology licensing under convex costs," Discussion Papers 10/05, University of Nottingham, School of Economics.
    9. Stefano Colombo & Luigi Filippini, 2015. "Patent Licensing with Bertrand Competitors," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 83(1), pages 1-16, January.
    10. Cuihong Fan & Byoung Heon Jun & Elmar G. Wolfstetter, 2018. "Optimal licensing under incomplete information: the case of the inside patent holder," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 66(4), pages 979-1005, December.
    11. Rabah Amir & David Encaoua & Yassine Lefouili, 2011. "Per-Unit Royalty vs Fixed Fee: The Case of Weak Patents," Working Papers halshs-00595493, HAL.
    12. Tian, Xiaoli, 2016. "Licensing a quality-enhancing innovation to an upstream firm," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 509-514.
    13. Sen, Debapriya & Tauman, Yair, 2007. "General licensing schemes for a cost-reducing innovation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 163-186, April.
    14. Ana Mauleon & Vincent Vannetelbosch & Cecilia Vergari, 2013. "Bargaining and delay in patent licensing," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 9(4), pages 279-302, December.
    15. Neelanjan Sen, 2015. "Technology Transfer in Oligopoly in Presence of Fixed-Cost in Production," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 383-409, December.
    16. Zhao, Dan, 2017. "Choices and impacts of cross-licensing contracts," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 389-405.
    17. Stefano Colombo & Luigi Filippini, 2016. "Revenue royalties," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 118(1), pages 47-76, May.
    18. Sen, Debapriya, 2005. "Fee versus royalty reconsidered," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 141-147, October.
    19. Tina Kao, 2009. "Strategic Licensing And Sequential Innovations," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 77(4), pages 512-551, July.
    20. San Martín Lizarralde, Marta & Saracho de la Torre, Ana Isabel, 2012. "Two-part tariff licensing mechanisms," IKERLANAK http://www-fae1-eao1-ehu-, Universidad del País Vasco - Departamento de Fundamentos del Análisis Económico I.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Patent licensing; Insider; Asymmetric information; Per unit royalty; Ad valorem royalty;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • D45 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Rationing; Licensing

    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:eee:indorg:v:37:y:2014:i:c:p:38-46. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505551 .

    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.