Endogenous Spillovers and Incentives to Innovate

Hans Gersbach, CER-ETH Center of Economic Research at ETH Zurich
Armin Schmutzler, University of Zurich

Abstract

We present a new approach to endogenizing technological spillovers. Firms choose continuous levels of a cost-reducing innovation before they engage in competition for each other's R&D-employees. Successful bids for the competitor's employee then result in higher levels of cost-reduction. Finally, firms enter product market competition. We apply the approach to the long-standing debate on the effects of the mode of competition on innovation incentives. We show that incentives to acquire spillovers are stronger and incentives to prevent spillovers are weaker under quantity competition than under price competition. As a result, for a wide range of parameters, price competition gives stronger innovation incentives than quantity competition.