Patent Protection, Innovation Rate and Welfare

In the context of international technology transfer from the developed North to the developing South, this paper analyses the impact of the Southern patent protection on the innovation rate in the North and the welfare effect in the South. In a two-period model, we show how the different modes of technology transfers (licensing or subsidiary) affect the R&D incentive and thereby the rate of innovation in the North. It is shown that under the licensing contract, no patent protection in the South is best for the South as it increases the innovation rate in the North, thereby leading to greater welfare in the South. We also argue for certain degree of patent protection in the South for maximization of its welfare under some parameter configurations.Technology transfer; Patent protection; Innovation; Welfare

Strategic Outsourcing with Technology Transfer

We analyze the outsourcing decision of a firm for a key input of a final good production to an independent input supplier even though the firm has an option of producing that key input in-house at a lower cost with a better technology. We find that for smaller technology gap with the independent input supplier the firm would outsource and for larger technology gap it would produce the input in-house for itself and for its rivals. The outsourcing occurs in order to take advantage of its sale of superior technology to the independent input supplier at a high payment although it involves a high price for the input to be acquired from the monopoly input supplier. Though the firm gains from strategic outsourcing, consumers’ welfare as well as social welfare goes down.outsourcing; technology transfer; vertical structure; competition; welfare

Patent Licensing from High-Cost Firm to Low-Cost Firm

In the literature of patent licensing, most of the studies are done where new technology is transferred from a cost-efficient firm (patentee) to a less efficient firm (licensee). However, R&D intensive firms are usually based in high wage countries whereas the cost-efficient firms are based in low wage countries. As a result R&D intensive firms are not necessarily the most cost -efficient firms in the industry, although in most cases they are the patentee firms. Given this backdrop, we study a situation of patent licensing where the technology transfer takes place from an innovative firm, which is relatively inefficient in terms of cost of production to its cost-efficient rival. We look for optimal licensing arrangements in this environment. This framework also provides a platform to bridge the literature on external and internal patentees.licensing, fixed fee, royalty, two-part tariff, quantity competition, Innovation

On Patent Licensing in Spatial Competition

We consider the issue of patent licensing in a linear city framework where firms are located at the end points of the city and compete in price. We consider three types of licensing arrangements, namely, auction, fixed fee, royalty; and focus on the optimal licensing strategy of an outsider patentee as well as an insider patentee. Contrary to the findings in the existing literature, first we show offering royalty is the best for the patentee when the patentee is an outsider for both drastic and non-drastic innovation. For insider patentee, offering no-license is the best when the innovation is drastic, while royalty is optimal when the innovation is non-drastic. We find incentive for innovation is higher for an outsider patentee compared to an insider patentee. We also show that overall increase in welfare due to innovation is independent of the fact that the patentee is outsider or insider in each of the drastic and non-drastic case.licensing, auction, fixed fee, royalty, price competition

Knowledge diffusion under patent with asymmetric firms

We show that if patent protection and trade secrecy generate asymmetric market structure, an innovator may prefer patent protection than trade secrecy even if the diffusion probability is higher under the former but it increases market concentration by preventing some imitators. So, whether an innovator prefers patent protection or trade secrecy depends on the trade-off between the diffusion probability and market concentration.

Export cartel and consumer welfare

The purpose of this paper is to show that export cartels are not necessarily harmful for consumers in the importing countries. Using the strategic trade policy model of Brander and Spencer (1985a), we show that, contrary to the harmful effect, product-market cooperation benefits consumers by affecting the trade policies. We further show that consumers in the importing countries are affected adversely if cooperation is among the governments of the exporting countries, instead of the exporting firms

Welfare reducing vertical integration in a bilateral monopoly under Nash bargaining

We consider a bilateral monopoly where a linear input price is determined by Nash bargaining. We show with an increasing marginal cost of input production that vertical integration reduces consumer surplus and welfare compared to bilateral monopoly if the bargaining power of the input supplier is low. This result is important for competition policies as it questions the common wisdom suggesting vertical integration increases welfare by eliminating the problem of double marginalisation. Over production under bilateral monopoly compared to vertical integration is the reason for our result. Interestingly, consumer surplus and welfare can be higher under a linear input price compared to a two-part tariff input price