Network Externality and Software Piracy

copyright, software piracy, network externality, market structure, competition

Multicollinearity and maximum entropy leuven estimator

Multicollinearity is a serious problem in applied regression analysis. Q. Paris (2001) introduced the MEL estimator to resolve the multicollinearity problem. This paper improves the MEL estimator to the Modular MEL (MMEL) estimator and shows by Monte Carlo experiments that MMEL estimator performs significantly better than OLS as well as MEL estimators.maximum entropy

Network Externality and Commercial Software Piracy

Contrary to the earlier findings under end-users piracy where the existence of strong network externality was shown to be a reason for allowing limited piracy, we find when the piracy is commercial in nature the optimal policy for the original software developer is to protect its product irrespective of the strength of network externality in the software users market.Copyright violations, Commercial/Retail piracy, Network externality, Quality

Asymmetric Spatial Competition

This paper considers price and location decisions of competing duopolists through an approach that integrates the traditional inside location and outside location model. One firm locates inside a linear city along with consumers while the other locates outside it. We analyze a location-price simultaneous game as well as a location-then price sequential game and characterize the equilibria in pure strategies. The transport cost are assumed to be linear-quadratic and borne by the consumers. We find the results are contrasting to the traditional inside and outside location models and the stability of the proposed model is intermediate between the two.Inside-outside location model, spatial competition, product differentiation, transportation costs, cross-border shopping

Accommodation or Deterrence in the Face of Commercial Piracy: the Impact of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Protection

In this paper, we address the issue of illegal copying or counterfeiting of the original product and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protections. The original product developer makes costly investment to deter piracy in a given regime of IPR protection. In the presence of a commercial pirate, we find that it is profitable for the original producer to accommodate the pirate when there is weak IPR protection, and deter when the IPR protection is strong. However, in the comparative statics analysis, we find that there is a non-monotonic relationship between the optimal level of deterrence (chosen by the original producer) and the degree of IPR protection in the economy. The relationship between the rate of piracy and IPR protection is found to be monotonically decreasing whereas the relationship between the rate of piracy and the quality of the pirated product turns out to be non-monotonic. On the other side, from the commercial pirate¡¯s point of view, the most profitable way to survive in the market is to produce a pirated product of moderate quality. Our model also provided a possible explanation of varying piracy rates across countries/regions.Piracy, Copyright violations, Raising rival¡¯s cost, Deterrence, Accommodation, Product quality

Endogenous Timing in a Mixed Duopoly and Private Duopoly - ‘Capacity- then-Quantity’ Game

We consider a game of endogenous timing of sequential choice of capacity and quantity with observable delay in a mixed duopoly and a private duopoly under two possible time structures. In mixed duopoly, we find that a simultaneous play at the capacity stage or at the quantity stage can never be supported as subgame perfect Nash equilibrium (SPNE); whereas a simultaneous play at each stage turns out to be the unique SPNE in a private duopoly. In mixed duopoly there is multiplicity of equilibria and all SPNEs require sequentiality at the capacity as well as quantity stage. These equilibrium outcomes are invariant with respect to the endogenous time structures. In this context, we also show that the public firm never chooses over (excess) capacity in mixed duopoly, while the private firm never chooses under capacity in both mixed and private duopoly.Endogenous timing, public firm, private firm, over capacity, under capacity

Patent licensing in spatial competition: Does pre-innovation cost asymmetry matter?

We consider the optimal licensing strategy of an insider patentee in a circular city of Salop’s model and in a linear city of Hotelling’s model when firms have asymmetric pre-innovation marginal costs of production and compete in prices. We completely characterize the optimal licensing policies using a fixed fee and per-unit royalty under the drastic and non-drastic innovations. We find that when the innovative firm is efficient compared to the licensee at the pre-innovation stage then the results regarding optimal licensing policy coincide with the results described in the literature with symmetric firms. However, this is not true when the innovative firm is inefficient in the pre-innovation stage compared to the licensee. To that end, we show that even a drastic innovation can be licensed using a royalty scheme when the patentee is highly inefficient compared to licensee in the pre-innovation stage and the size of the innovation is intermediate. We also show that in this set-up, fixed fee licensing is never optimal.Innovation; Technology transfer; Salop model; Hotelling model; Patent licensing; symmetric and asymmetric costs

Product Innovation and Stability of Collusion

We study the nature of market competition in relation to stability of collusion in the infinitely repeated play of a two-stage game of product innovation and market competition, and show that cooperation in giving R&D efforts is more easily sustained when firms compete in quantity than in price.R&D Effort, Product differentiation, Collusion

The Choice of Capacity in Mixed Duopoly under Demand Uncertainty

We analyze the capacity choice of firms under demand uncertainty in a mixed duopoly market consisting of one private firm and one public firm. We define a two-stage game where firms choose capacity in the first stage without knowing which state of Nature is going to be realized, and output in the second stage knowing which state is realized. We address the question of maintaining over and under capacity in the equilibrium as a strategic device; and show that both symmetric and asymmetric outcomes can be realized.

Mixed oligopoly and the choice of capacity

We analyze the capacity choice of firms under different time structures in a mixed oligopoly market, in which firms decide not only production quantities but also capacity scales. We show that the public firm never chooses excess capacity, while the private firm never chooses under capacity under all possible strategic environments.Public firm, Private firm, Excess capacity, Under capacity