Innovation Preannouncement and Entry in a Vertically Differentiated Industry

When considering the preannouncement of the market introduction of a newly developed, durable good, an innovative firm faces a trade-off. By announcing early, the firm can prevent the loss of potential demand before the launch of its product. At the same time, the incumbent firm learns about the market introduction and has the opportunity to take preemptive actions against the innovative firm. This analysis shows under which industry conditions an innovative firm can be expected to preannounce its product launch into a vertically differentiated industry. Welfare considerations indicate that consumers would not necessarily be better off if the information about future product generations would be common knowledge and that there might even be situations in which they would prefer product preannouncements to be banned completely.

Labor Pooling in R&D Intensive Industries

We investigate firms’ incentives to locate in the same region to gain access to a large pool of skilled labor. Firms engage in risky R&D activities and thus create stochastic product and implied labor demand. Agglomeration in a cluster is more likely in situations where the innovation step is large and the probability for a firm to be the only innovator is high. When firms cluster, they tend to invest more and take more risk in R&D compared to spatially dispersed firms. Agglomeration is welfare maximizing, because expected labor productivity is higher and firms choose a more efficient, technically diversified portfolio of R&D projects at the industry level.

Project Choice and Risk in R&D

We introduce stochastic R&D in the Hotelling model and show that if the technical risk is sufficiently high, all firms focus on the most valuable market segment. We then endogenize technical risk by allowing firms to choose between a safe and a risky R&D technology. In equilibrium, firms either both target the most attractive market with at least one firm using the risky technology or they choose different niche projects and both apply the safe R&D technology. We show that R&D spillovers lead to more differentiated R&D projects and patent protection to less. Project coordination within a RJV implies more differentiation, and may be welfare-improving.technical risk; R&D project choice; technological spillovers; research joint ventures

Labor Pooling in R&D Intensive Industries

We investigate the interplay between firms' R&D decisions and labor market competition, and how this influences equilibrium location choices and welfare. Firms engage in risky R&D activities and thus create stochastic product and implied labor demand. Spatial agglomeration is more likely in situations where the innovation step is large and the probability for a firm to be the only innovator is high. When firms agglomerate, they tend to invest more in R&D compared to spatially dispersed firms. Agglomeration is welfare maximizing, because expected labor productivity is higher and firms choose a more efficient, diversified portfolio of R&D projects at the industry level. The latter aspect is ascertained by data from German firms in R&D intensive industries. --

Labour Pooling in R&D Intensive Industries

We investigate firms' incentives to locate in the same region to gain access to a large pool of skilled labour. Firms engage in risky R&D activities and thus create stochastic product and implied labour demand. Agglomeration in a cluster is more likely in situations where the innovation step is large and the probability for a firm to be the only innovator is high. When firms cluster, they tend to invest more and take more risk in R&D compared to spatially dispersed firms. Agglomeration is welfare-maximizing, because expected labour productivity is higher and firms choose a more efficient, technically diversified portfolio of R&D projects at the industry level.agglomeration; labour pooling; R&D

Mentale Repräsentationen von Bewegungsrichtungen und deren Einfluss auf sensomotorische Adaptationsleistungen

Lex H, Weigelt M, Schack T. Mentale Repräsentationen von Bewegungsrichtungen und deren Einfluss auf sensomotorische Adaptationsleistungen. In: Sudeck G, Conzelmann A, Lehnert K, Gerlach E, eds. Differentielle Sportpsychologie - Sportwissenschaftliche Persönlichkeitsforschung. 2008: 86