Competition, R&D, and the Cost of Innovation.

This paper proposes a model in the spirit of Aghion et al. (2005) that encompasses the magnitude of the impact of competition on R&D according to the cost of the innovation. The effect of competition on R&D is an inverted U-shape. However, the shape is flatter and competition policy is therefore less relevant for innovation when innovations are relatively costly. Intuitively, if innovations are costly for a firm, competitive shocks have to be significant to alter its innovation decisions. Empirical investigations using a unique panel dataset from the Banque de France show that an inverted U-shaped relationship can be clearly evidenced for the largest firms, but the curve becomes flatter when the relative cost of R&D increases. For large costs, the relationship even vanishes. Consequently, in sectors in which innovations are costly, policy changes have to be on a very large scale for an impact to be expected; at the extreme end, in certain sectors, the curve is so at that competition policy is not an appropriate tool for boosting the research effort of firms.Competition ; R&D ; Innovation.

Is the Inflation-Output Nexus Asymmetric in the Euro Area?

This paper challenges the assumption that the inflation process within the euro area is well-described by a linear Phillips curve and investigates in a nonparametric framework how inflation is sensitive to output growth. An asymmetric output-inflation trade-off is pointed out in the euro area at both aggregated and individual country levels.Nonlinear Phillips curve ; Price stability ; Kernel smoothing.

Hexagonal spiral growth in the absence of a substrate

Experiments on the formation of spiraling hexagons (350 - 1000 nm in width) from a solution of nanoparticles are presented. Transmission electron microscopy images of the reaction products of chemically synthesized cadmium nanocrystals indicate that the birth of the hexagons proceeds without assistance from static screw or edge dislocatons, that is, they spiral without constraints provided by an underlying substrate. Instead, the apparent growth mechanism relies on what we believe is a dynamical dislocation identified as a dense aggregate of small nanocrystals that straddles the spiraling hexagon at the crystal surface. This nanocrystal bundle, which we term the "feeder", also appears to release nanocrystals into the spiral during the growth process.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure