Strategic information transmission and stochastic orders

I develop new results on uniqueness and comparative statics of equilibria in the Crawford and Sobel (1982) strategic information transmission game. For a class of utility functions, I demonstrate that logconcavity of the density implies uniqueness of equilibria inducing a given number of Receiver actions. I provide comparative statics results with respect to the distribution of types for distributions that are comparable in the likelihood ratio order, implying, e.g., that advice from a better informed Sender induces the Receiver to choose actions that are more spread out

Monopoly, non-linear pricing, and imperfect information: a reconsideration of the insurance market

I reconsider Stiglitz's (1977) problem of monopolistic insurance with a continuum of types. Using a suitable transformation of control variables I obtain an analytical characterization of the optimal insurance policies. Closed form solutions and comparative statics results for special cases are provided

Monopoly, Non-linear Pricing, and Imperfect Information : A Reconsideration of the Insurance Market

I reconsider Stiglitz's (1977) problem of monopolistic insurance with a continuum of types. Using a suitable transformation of control variables I obtain an analytical characterization of the optimal insurance policies. Closed form solutions and comparative statics results for special cases are provided.nonlinear pricing ; screening ; risk aversion

Regulating a multiproduct and multitype monopolist

I study the optimal regulation of a firm producing two goods. The firm has private information about its cost of producing either of the goods. I explore the ways in which the optimal allocation differs from its one dimensional counterpart. With binding constraints in both dimensions, the allocation involves distortions for the most efficient producers and features overproduction for some less efficient types

Financial Contracting, R&D and Growth

This paper investigates the role of financial constraints in R&D races of the type used in Schumpeterian growth theory. In a world of perfect capital markets these models predict that all innovations come from industry outsiders. In reality, however, we observe a pronounced persistence of some dominant firms. We show that this persistence can be explained by constraints on financial contracting. The paper highlights an indirect channel through which agency costs reduce growth: due to agency costs incumbents face little competition from outsiders. Therefore they can afford to innovate less often and to ''rest longer on their laurels'', thereby retarding growth.moral hazard, inside/outside finance, patent race, endogenous growth

Cash Breeds Success : The Role of Financing Constraints in Patent Races

This paper studies the impact of financing constraints on the equilibrium of a patent race. We develop a model where firms finance their R&D expenditures with an investor who cannot verify their effort. We solve for the optimal financial contract of any firm along its best-response function. In equilibrium, any firm in the race is more likely to win the more cash and assets it holds prior to the race, and the less cash and assets its rivals hold prior to the race. We use NBER evidence from pharmaceutical patents awarded between 1975 and 1999 in the US, patent citations, and COMPUSTAT to measure the effect of all the racing firms' cash holdings on the equilibrium winning probabilities. The empirical findings support our theoretical predictions.Patent Race ; optimal contract ; innovation ; financial constraints

Multidimensional Screening, Affiliation, and Full Separation

We solve a class of two-dimensional screening problems in which one dimension has the standard features, while the other dimension is impossible to exaggerate and enters the agent's utility only through the message but not the true type. Natural applications are procurement and regulation where the producer's ability to produce quality and his costs of producing quantity are both unknown ; or selling to a budget constrained buyer. We show that under these assumptions, the orthogonal incentive constraints are necessary and suffcient for the full set of incentive constraints. Provided that types are affliated and all the conditional distributions of types have monotonic inverse hazard rates, the solution is fully separating in both dimensions.

Regulating a Monopolist with unknown costs and unknown quality capacity

We study the regulation of a firm with unknown demand and cost information. In contrast to previous studies, we assume demand is influenced by a quality choice, and the firm has private information about its quality capacity in addition to its cost. Under natural conditions, asymmetric information about the quality capacity is irrelevant. The optimal pricing is weakly above marginal costs for all types and no type is excluded.Asymmetric Information ; Multi-dimensional Screening ; Regulation

Sequential Innovations and Intellectual Property Rights

We analyze a two-stage patent race. In the first phase firms seek to develop a research tool, an innovation that has no commercial value but is necessary to enter the second phase of the race. The firm that completes the second phase of the race first obtains a patent on the final innnovation and enjoys its profits. We ask whether patent protection for the innovator of the research tool is beneficial from the ex ante point of view. We show that there is a range of values of the final innovation such that firms prefer to have no Intellectual Property Rights for research tools.Sequential Patent Race ; Intellectual Property Rights ; Knowledge Sharing

Cash breeds Success: The Role of Financing Constraints in Patent Races

This paper studies the impact of cash constraints on equilibrium winning probabilities in a patent race between an incumbent and an entrant. We develop a model where cash-constrained firms finance their R&D expenditures with an investor who cannot verify their effort. In equilibrium, the incumbent faces better prospects of winning the race the less cash-constrained he is and the more cash-constrained the entrant is. We use NBER evidence from pharmaceutical patents awarded between 1975 and 1999 in the US, patent citations, and COMPUSTAT and fit probabilistic regressions of the predicted equilibrium winning probabilities on measures of the incumbent's and potential entrants' financial wealth. The empirical findings support our theoretical predictions.patent race; incumbent; entrant; financial constraints; empirical estimation