Bargaining with a Property Rights Owner

We consider a bargaining problem where one of the players, the intellectual property rights owner (IPRO) can allocate licenses for the use of this property among the interested parties (agents). The agents negotiate with him the allocation of licenses and the payments of the licensees to the IPRO. We state five axioms and characterize the bargaining solutions which satisfy these axioms. Every solution is characterized by a fraction a. Every agent obtains a weighted average of his individually rational level and his marginal contribution to the set of all players, where the weights are a and 1-a, respectively, uniformly over all bargaining problems. The IPRO obtains the remaing surplus. The solution for a=1/2 is the nucleolus of a naturally related game in characteristic form.Bargaining solution, nucleolus, licensing, property rights

On (Non-) Monotonicity of Cooperative Solutions

Aggregate monotonicity of cooperative solutions is widely accepted as a desirable property, and examples where certain solution concepts (such as the nucleolus) violate this property are scarce and have no economic interpretation. We provide an example of a simple four-player game that points out at a class of economic contexts where aggregate monotonicity is not appealing.Cooperative games, aggregate monotonicity, axiomatic solution, core, Shapley value, nucleolus

General licensing schemes for a cost-reducing innovation

Two general forms of standard licensing policies are considered for a non-drastic cost-reducing innovation: (a) combination of an upfront fee and uniform linear royalty, and (b) combination of auction and uniform linear royalty. It is shown that in an oligopoly, the total reduction in the cost due to the innovation for the pre-innovation competitive output forms the lower bound of the payoffs of both outsider and incumbent innovators. Further, the private value of the patent is increasing in the magnitude of the innovation, while the Cournot price and the payoff of any other firm fall below their respective pre-innovation levels. Sufficiently significant innovations from an outsider innovator are licensed exclusively to a single firm. Otherwise, all other firms, except perhaps one, become licensees. The dissemination of the innovation is generally higher with an incumbent innovator compared to an outsider. For both outsider and incumbent innovators, the monopoly does not provide the highest incentive to innovate; for sufficiently insignificant innovations, it is the duopoly that does so, and, the industry size that provides the highest incentive increases with the magnitude of the innovation. Finally, it is argued that significant innovations are more likely to occur when the innovator is an incumbent firm.Non-drastic innovation, outsider innovator, incumbent innovator, FR policy, AR policy.

Inducing Efficiency in Oligopolistic Markets with Increasing Returns to Scale

We consider a Cournot Oligopoly market of firms possessing increasing returns to scale technologies. It is shown that an external regulating agency can increase total social welfare without running a deficit. It offers to subsidize one firm an amount which depends on the output level of that firm. The firms bid for this contract and the regulator collects the highest bid and subsidizes the highest bidding firm. It is shown that there exists a subsidy schedule such that (i) The regulator breaks even (namely the winning bid equals the total subsidy) (ii) The winning firm obtains zero net profit and charges a price equal to its average cost (iii) Every other firm willingly exit the market and (iv) Market price decreases, consumers are better off and total welfare improves.Regulation, Oligopoly, Increasing Returns

Proper Welfare Weights for Social Optimization Problems

Social optimization problems are often used in economics to study important issues. In a social optimization problem, the sum of individual weighted utilities is maximized over all feasible allocations that satisfy certain constraints. In this paper, we provide a mechanism that determines the set of proper individual weights to be applied to social optimization problems. To do this, we first define for every set of individual weights and for every social welfare function the contribution of every individual to the total welfare through the individual’s initial endowments. We then provide an axiomatic approach to the notion of the per unit contribution of every good and every individual. We then define a set of individual weights to be proper iff the weighted utilities of every individual from this allocation are proportional to the contribution of the individual to the total welfare as defined by this set of weights. It is shown that every contribution mechanism that satisfies these four axioms is uniquely determined by a non negative measure on the unit interval. The selection of a specific contribution mechanism (or equivalently the selection of a specific nonnegative measure on the unit interval) determines for a given economy and a given set of weights a proper constrained efficient allocation and a proper set of weights. Finally, we provide several numerical examples that illustrate our methodology. When households are not ex ante identical, the examples suggest that using the proper weights can substantially affect the allocations.Welfare weights, Heterogeneous Households

Patent licensing in a Cournot oligopoly: general results

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of patent licensing in a Cournot oligopoly with general demand and looks at both outside and incumbent innovators. The licensing policies considered are upfront fees, unit royalties and combinations of fees and royalties (FR policies). It is shown that (i) royalties unambiguously ensure full diffusion of the innovation while diffusion is limited under upfront fees, (ii) the Cournot price is higher under royalties compared to upfront fees and the price could even exceed the post-innovation monopoly price, (iii) for generic values of magnitudes of the innovation, when the industry size is relatively large, royalties are superior to upfront fees for the innovator and (iv) for any m, there is always a non empty subset of m-drastic innovations such that for relatively large industry sizes, upfront fee policy results in higher consumer surplus as well as welfare compared to both royalty and FR policies

Patent licensing in a Cournot oligopoly: general results

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of patent licensing in a Cournot oligopoly with general demand and looks at both outside and incumbent innovators. The licensing policies considered are upfront fees, unit royalties and combinations of fees and royalties (FR policies). It is shown that (i) royalties unambiguously ensure full diffusion of the innovation while diffusion is limited under upfront fees, (ii) the Cournot price is higher under royalties compared to upfront fees and the price could even exceed the post-innovation monopoly price, (iii) for generic values of magnitudes of the innovation, when the industry size is relatively large, royalties are superior to upfront fees for the innovator and (iv) for any m, there is always a non empty subset of m-drastic innovations such that for relatively large industry sizes, upfront fee policy results in higher consumer surplus as well as welfare compared to both royalty and FR policies

Entry with two correlated signals : the case of industrial espionage and its positive competitive effects

Recent advances in information and communication technologies have increased the incentives for firms to acquire information about rivals. These advances may have major implications for market entry because they make it easier for potential entrants to gather valuable information about, for example, an incumbent's cost structure. However, little theoretical research has actually analyzed this question. This paper advances the literature by extending a one-sided asymmetric information version of Milgrom and Roberts' (1982) limit pricing model. Here, the entrant is allowed access to an intelligence system (IS) of a certain precision that generates a noisy signal on the incumbent's cost structure. The entrant thus decides whether to enter the market based on two signals: the price charged by the incumbent and the signal sent by the IS. Crucially, for intermediate values of IS precision, the set of pooling equilibria with ex-ante profitable market entry is non-empty. Moreover, the probability of ex-ante non-profitable entry is strictly positive. In classical limit pricing models, an entrant never enters in a pooling equilibrium, so this result suggests that the use of an IS may potentially increase competition