Management of New Technology Ec261 Lecture 7 1 Introduction We will start with a historical review of the economic theory of the links between market structure or firm size and innovation and look at some empirical results. We will see from these results that there is no conclusive empirical link between market structure or firm size and innovation. We will then examine recent theory and we will see that there are, indeed, forces that tend to favour innovation in highly competitive markets as well as forces that tend to favour innovation in highly monopolised markets (or, at least, innovation by incumbents rather than new entrants). We will conclude with a discussion of theory and evidence pointing to an “inverted U” relationship between market structure and innovation, with moderately competitive markets generating the highest innovation rates. 2 Week 7 Outline Historical review of theory and evidence Market structure and the incentive to innovate Incumbents, entrants and the incentive to innovate Firm size, market structure and innovation: economic mechanisms Competition and innovation: an inverted-U relationship 3 Innovation and Market Structure Schumpeter, 1942: “The atomistic firm in a competitive market is the suitable vehicle for static resource allocation, but the large firm operating in a concentrated market is the most powerful engine of progress and … long run expansion of output … Perfect competition … has no title to being set up as a model of ideal efficiency.” Why might this be true? 1. Firms require an expectation of some (perhaps transient) market power to have the incentive to invest in R&D. 2. In an oligopolistic market, behaviour by rivals is more predictable and this reduces the uncertainty associated with innovative effort. 3. Large firms might not be as financially constrained as small firms. 4 Innovation and Market Structure This view of large firms and concentrated markets as engines of innovation and growth sets static efficiency losses against dynamic efficiency gains. Some static resource misallocation costs estimates are very small (less than 1% of GNP – Harberger 1954), others are substantial (4-13% of GNP – Cowling & Mueller 1978). Even the largest of these might be worth incurring in exchange for larger rates of technological progress, if we believe the numbers in lecture 1 on the contribution of technology to growth. In other words, the dynamic efficiency gains might justify static efficiency losses. 5 Innovation and Market Structure Schumpeter’s view sparked a literature that tests two hypotheses: Innovation increases more than proportionately with firm size Innovation increases with market concentration Overall, both the empirical and theoretical literature on these two hypotheses have been inconclusive. 6 Innovation and Market Structure Scherer (1967) finds an “inverted U” relationship between concentration and R&D intensity with a “four-firm concentration ratio” of 50-55% being “best”. When the effect of technology class is compared to the effect of market structure, however, technology class appears a far more important determinant of innovativeness than market structure. Schmookler (1962) suggests that demand conditions (size of market, price elasticity, rate of growth, number of competitors) and supply conditions (technology class and stage in technology cycle, for example) jointly determine innovativeness, but recognises that spillovers and regulatory environment will also affect innovativeness. 7 Innovation, Firm Size and Market Structure See Symeonidis, OECD Economic Studies, 1997 Symeonidis (1997) surveys the empirical literature. Main findings: 1. Very small firms do little R&D and produce a less than proportionate number of innovations. 2. Above a certain threshold firm size, R&D seems to rise more or less proportionally, on the whole, with firm size, although there are variations of this pattern across industries, time periods and countries. 3. The evidence on the relationship between innovative output and firm size is inconclusive; most authors find that innovative output tends to rise less than proportionately with firm size, although other patterns have also been suggested for particular industries, periods or countries. 8 Innovation, Firm Size and Market Structure Symeonidis (1997) survey (cont.): 4. There is little evidence of a positive relationship between R&D intensity and market concentration in general, although there may be circumstances where such a relationship exists. 5. There is even less evidence of a positive impact of concentration on innovative output. 6. Industry characteristics such as technological opportunity explain much more of the variance across firms and industries in R&D intensity or innovation than market structure or firm size. 9 Innovation, Firm Size and Market Structure Limitations of studies that examine the effect of firm size or market structure on innovation: • Problems with measuring innovative activity: none of the measures (R&D expenditure, patent counts, number of significant innovations) is entirely satisfactory. • Firm size and market structure are likely to be “endogenous”. • Difficult to fully control for industry-specific characteristics which affect innovation and may be correlated with concentration or firm size. 10 Market Structure and Incentives to Innovate Let’s go back to theory and see where the ambiguity may be coming from… What market structures are most conducive to innovation? A good way to identify some important mechanisms is to ask: How do a monopolist’s incentives to innovate compare to the incentives of a perfectly competitive firm? We will first consider a firm’s incentive to carry out R&D in order to reduce its cost when the alternative to this firm’s innovation is no innovation by any firm. We assume: homogeneous good constant marginal (and average) cost. 11 Price PM PM’ PC=P’ Monopolist net gain: + – P.C. firm net gain: + – 0 MC MC’ Incremental Demand 0 Quantity MR Price Monopolist net gain: P.C. firm net gain: PM PC – – 0 MC PM’ Drastic Demand 0 MR MC’ Quantity 12 Market Structure and Incentives to Innovate In the case of drastic innovation, the monopolist’s gain from innovation is clearly less than that of the p.c. firm. In the case of incremental innovation, it is slightly less clear from the graph, but it can be shown that the gain of the p.c. firm again exceeds that of the monopolist. Note: the graphs portray the p.c. firm undercutting its rivals and capturing the entire market – but the price it can set depends on the nature of the innovation (drastic or incremental). 13 Market Structure and Incentives to Innovate Intuition: The new process takes away the profits generated by the old process and replaces them with new profits. For the monopolist, this represents a real loss of “old profits”. The p.c. firm, on the other hand, was earning zero profits with the old process, hence there is nothing to “replace”. For both the monopolist and the p.c. firm, there is a gain due to the lower marginal cost (efficiency gain). For the p.c. firm, this is a pure gain, whereas for the monopolist this gain needs to be tempered by the fact that a replacement occurs. This leads to a smaller net gain for the monopolist … hence a weaker incentive to innovate. 14 Market Structure and Incentives to Innovate Recall that Cohen and Levinthal (lecture 3) observed higher innovation rates associated with higher levels of competition. Policy issue: Should we reduce concentration in the product market in order to increase the incentives to innovate? This has implications for competition policy: it suggests that we should not have a different policy towards monopolisation practices in (potentially) innovative markets than in other markets. Management issue: (Going beyond the model just presented, as we now have in mind an asymmetric leader-follower oligopoly, but based on the same intuition) The current leader in an industry would normally expect not to maintain its position … and this may be (privately) optimal. 15 Incumbent, Entrant and Incentives to Innovate We have been comparing the incentives to innovate of a monopolist to those of a perfectly competitive firm… But we could have also defined these firms as an incumbent and a potential entrant. An incumbent suffers the replacement effect from an innovation, while an entrant does not. Our model so far suggests that when the alternative to a firm’s innovation is no innovation by any firm, the potential entrant has a stronger incentive to innovate than the incumbent. Note: we have analysed the case of process innovation. For a product innovation, the results are more ambiguous. 16 Incumbent, Entrant and Incentives to Innovate But there is also an alternative argument which goes the opposite way… We have assumed that there is no competition in the market for innovation: innovations “fall into the lap” of a single firm. Consider now the incentives of a single firm to invest in innovation when the alternative to innovation by that firm is that another firm innovates. Assume also that innovation is incremental. Which type of firm, an incumbent monopolist or a new entrant, will have a greater incentive to innovate? In monetary terms, which type of firm would “bid” more in order to obtain the rights to an innovation? 17 Incumbent, Entrant and Incentives to Innovate Consider the following model. We have: • two firms, an incumbent and a potential entrant • an R&D lab that wishes to sell an innovation to the firm that is willing to pay the most • the innovation lowers marginal and average cost from ch to cl • homogeneous product. If the incumbent firm obtains the new technology, it will make monopoly profit. If the potential entrant obtains the technology, it enters the market, which therefore becomes a duopoly. Each firm gets duopoly profit. How much will a firm bid? A firm will be prepared to bid up to the difference in its profit between getting the innovation and not getting it. Note that the “old profit” is no longer relevant here. 18 Incumbent, Entrant and Incentives to Innovate Outsider (entrant) bid: Πd(cl,ch) – 0, where the first term reads “duopoly profit with own cost cl and competitor’s cost ch”. Insider (incumbent) bid: ΠM(cl) – Πd(ch,cl), where the first term reads “monopoly profit with own cost cl” and the second term reads “duopoly profit with own cost ch and competitor’s cost cl”. Which of these “bids” is larger? Note that: ΠM(cl) – Πd(ch,cl) > Πd(cl,ch) – 0 ΠM(cl) > Πd(cl,ch) + Πd(ch,cl) So the question becomes: Is monopoly profit by a low-cost firm greater or less than total profit of a duopoly when one duopolist is low-cost and the other high-cost? In most models, the monopoly profit is greater. So the insider (incumbent) outbids the outsider (entrant). 19 Incumbent, Entrant and Incentives to Innovate Conclusion: When the alternative to innovation by one firm is that another firm innovates and innovations are incremental, the incumbent/monopolist firm has a greater incentive to obtain new innovations in order to preserve a favourable industry structure. The incumbent has more to gain from obtaining the new technology than the potential entrant. As a result, the incumbent’s dominance over the industry will tend to persist over time. Implication: Reducing barriers to entry into the research/innovation market will preserve the incentive to innovate for incumbent firms. 20 Incumbent, Entrant and Incentives to Innovate In fact, the incumbent’s incentive to innovate may be so strong that it results in socially excessive innovation… Suppose the innovation does not lower cost (i.e. cl = ch), it only allows another method of obtaining the same cost level, hence allowing entry. Which firm has a greater incentive to obtain a patent and hold this innovation, an incumbent or an entrant? ΠM(ch) – Πd(ch,ch) > Πd(ch,ch) – 0 ΠM(ch) > Πd(ch,ch) + Πd(ch,ch) In most models the above inequality holds, so the incumbent still has the greater incentive to obtain the innovation, even if it will not be used (since it does not lower cost at all). The innovation is socially wasteful. 21 Persistence of Leadership vs. Leapfrogging According to our theory so far, we should observe “persistence of monopoly” rather than “leapfrogging” when there is competition in the innovation market (i.e. when the alternative to innovation by one firm is innovation by another firm). But the evidence suggests that we observe persistence sometimes or in some industries and leapfrogging at other times/industries. Why? Maybe our model so far has not captured some essential aspect of competition in some real-world times/industries? Let’s try using a slightly different model: two firms, initially with the same marginal cost. An innovation comes up which can allow only one of them to reduce its marginal cost. Then a second innovation comes up which again can be used by only one firm and leads to an even greater reduction in mc. What will happen? 22 Persistence of Leadership in Bertrand Markets Assume: • homogeneous product • firms have constant marginal and average costs • Bertrand competition Main characteristics of Bertrand competition: • Price competition (with no capacity constraints) • Aggressive pricing resulting from ease with which a firm can steal customers away from competitors tough competition • With at least two firms, outcome is perfectly competitive: prices fall to marginal cost and profits are zero, at least when all firms have the same marginal cost • If one firm has a higher marginal cost, the low-cost firm can use this as a price “umbrella”: by pricing just under the high-cost firm’s cost, the low-cost firm can serve all market demand and earn positive profit. 23 Price ch cl Demand Quantity 0 Q High-cost firm cannot price below ch. Low-cost firm can price at or slightly below ch and serve the entire market demand, selling Q units and obtaining profit of 24 Persistence of Leadership in Bertrand Markets In our model there are three cost levels: ch > cm > cl. Two firms, they both start at ch. There are two periods. Each firm bids in each period to be the exclusive owner of a technology that lowers its cost. Hence, the period 1 winner will have cm, while the competitor retains ch. The period 2 winner will have cost cl. How much will a firm bid? A firm will be prepared to bid up to the difference in its profit between getting and not getting the technology in a given period. 25 Persistence of Leadership in Bertrand Markets Let A and B bid in period 1. Both will bid Πd(cm,ch) – 0. Let’s say we arbitrarily choose A to be the winner. At the end of period 1, we have an asymmetric industry structure: firm A has marginal cost cm and firm B has marginal cost ch. Bids in period 2: A bids Πd(cl,ch) – 0 B bids Πd(cl,cm) – 0 Which is bigger? The firm with the higher bid wins in period 2. Will it be firm A again or will it now be firm B? In other words, does a single firm have the incentive to develop all innovations or will the firms exchange “winner” role? 26 Price ch cm cl Bids in period 2 Demand 0 Quantity Q Q’ The winner in period 2 has cost cl. The price the winner will set will be equal to the cost level of the loser. Πd(cl,ch) = + Πd(cl,cm) = + A’s bid is higher: the winner in period 1 has a greater incentive to win in period 2 as well. This leads to “persistence”. 27 Leapfrogging or Persistence in Cournot Markets Assume: • homogeneous good • constant marginal and average costs, ch > cm > cl (as before) • Cournot competition Main characteristics of Cournot competition: • Quantity competition or competition in capacities with price adjusting to clear the market, or price competition with capacity constraints • Firms produce to capacity and market share is hard to steal, so there is unaggressive response to rival changes in capacity • In fact, the larger your quantity (capacity), the smaller my quantity (capacity) – otherwise equilibrium price will be too low and my profit will suffer • Positive profits for all industry participants. 28 Leapfrogging or Persistence in Cournot Markets Period 1 bids As before, each firm bids up to the difference between winning and losing: Πd(cm,ch) – Πd(ch,cm). As before, we suppose that firm A wins. Period 2 bids Now A has lower cost than B. A bids up to the difference between what it gets if it wins and what it gets if it loses: Πd(cl,ch) – Πd(cm,cl). Similarly, B bids up to: Πd(cl,cm) – Πd(ch,cl). Which one is bigger? In fact, we can have either result. It depends on the specific demand and costs assumed. So we can have either “persistence” or “leapfrogging”… 29 Persistence of Leadership vs. Leapfrogging In some industries (e.g. pharmaceuticals) we tend to see increasing dominance in some classes of drugs but leapfrogging in other classes, so even at the industry level it is hard to generalise. What can we say about patterns of innovation, then? For one thing, we would expect that the pattern of change in leadership would reflect the dominant oligopoly model for the industry: price or quantity (capacity) competition. But do firms compete by setting quantities? Maybe in some markets… There is, however, also a more general and useful interpretation of quantity competition: competition between firms with capacity constraints. 30 Persistence of Leadership vs. Leapfrogging Capacity-constrained firms have no incentive to reduce price a lot since they cannot produce a lot of extra output their response to rival action is unaggressive and competition is not very tough. In fact, Cournot outcomes can emerge from a two-stage process where firms first choose their capacities and then, given these capacities, they choose prices. Hence, the Cournot model is appropriate for industries where firms are capacity-constrained, the Bertrand model for industries where they are not. Even in the same industry, Cournot-type behaviour may be more common in economic upturns (as capacity constraints become binding) whereas Bertrand-like behaviour may be observed more in downturns. Hence, the pattern of leadership we observe may vary over the economic cycle – if innovation decisions occur in a short enough interval to adjust to the business cycle. 31 Competition and Innovation: An Inverted U Relationship See Aghion, Bloom, Blundell, Griffith, Howitt (2005) Assume: • Process innovation (lowering marginal cost) • Innovation is step-by-step (a firm must get even before it can get ahead) • Imitation is such that a firm can be at most one step behind • Profitability depends on lead (so if one step ahead, a firm earns more than if tied with the other firm) As soon as you are a leader (i.e. one step ahead) there is not much benefit to innovating because you can never pull more than one step ahead. So in asymmetric industries, only the follower has an incentive to innovate and catch up with the leader. If you are tied (“neck-and-neck”), there is an incentive for both firms to pull ahead, since there is a big benefit to leading and it takes only one step ahead to become a leader. 32 Competition and Innovation However, innovation incentives also depend on the degree of competition. Higher product market competition (or lower market concentration) in neck-and-neck industries implies lower profits, hence a lower payoff to not innovating, hence HIGHER innovation incentives: “escape competition” effect. Higher product market competition in asymmetric industries means lower profits to followers who catch up with the leader, so LOWER innovation incentives: a Schumpeterian effect. Whether higher product market competition leads to more or less innovation overall depends on the distribution of firms across neck-and-neck and asymmetric industries as well as the incentives within each of these industries: “composition effect”. 33 Competition and Innovation Assume initially high product market competition in a sector. The neck-and-neck industries tend to become asymmetric (because their innovation rates are high)… whereas the asymmetric industries tend to remain asymmetric (since their innovation rates are low). Hence, when product market competition is initially high, most industries will be asymmetric. Since most industries are asymmetric, a decrease in competition will raise the innovation rate (the Schumpeterian effect dominates). 34 Competition and Innovation Now assume initially low product market competition in a sector. Neck-and-neck industries remain neck-and-neck (since there is little incentive to innovate), whereas the asymmetric industries tend to become neck-and-neck (as their innovation rate is high). Hence, when product market competition is initially low, most industries will be neck-and-neck. Since most industries are neck-and-neck, an increase in competition will raise the innovation rate (the “escape competition” effect dominates). 35 Competition and Innovation The bottom line: Starting from high product market competition (PCM), a decrease in PCM raises the innovation rate. Starting from low product market competition, an increase in PCM raises the innovation rate. We therefore get an “inverted U” relationship between competition and innovation: intermediate levels of competition are associated with highest innovation rates. 36 Competition and Innovation high Innovation rate low low Product market competition high The “inverted U” relation is the result of the “Schumpeterian” and “escape competition” effects combined with the “composition” effect. The authors test this on UK industry-year data, using citation-weighted patents as their measure of innovativeness and price-cost margins as their measure of product market competition. They find support for an inverted U relationship. 37 Innovation, Firm Size and Market Structure: Evidence on Specific Mechanisms See Symeonidis, OECD Economic Studies, 1997 Much of the theory we have reviewed basically asks the question: “Which type of firm benefits more from developing an innovation?” However, this is not the only important question to ask. Let’s go back to some of the specific factors that bear on the links between innovation, firm size and market structure. These factors include: • sunk cost of R&D • diversification • appropriability conditions • financial constraints We briefly look at the empirical evidence on each of these. 38 Innovation, Firm Size and Market Structure Claim 1: R&D projects typically involve large sunk costs, and these can only be covered if sales are large – therefore large firms have an advantage over small firms. Evidence: Some but not all R&D involves large sunk costs. Claim 2: Large firms but not small firms can undertake many projects at any one time and hence spread the risks of R&D or can benefit from economies of scope in the production of innovations. The evidence on whether diversification favours innovative activity is inconclusive. 39 Innovation, Firm Size and Market Structure Claim 3: Firms with greater market power can more easily appropriate the returns from innovation and so they have better incentives to innovate. The evidence on whether firms with greater market power benefit more easily from patents or strategic IP protection is mixed. Claim 4: Large firms have generally better access to external finance. Moreover, firms with greater market power are better able to finance R&D from own profits. Evidence: Yes, on the whole. 40 Endogeneity of Innovation and Market Structure Recent research suggests that market structure and R&D intensity are jointly determined by technology, demand characteristics, the institutional framework, strategic interaction and chance: Certain characteristics of technology – such as the degree of continuity and predictability of technology and the extent of learning economies in innovation – are important determinants of the evolution of technological leadership and the degree of turbulence in R&Dintensive industries. Demand characteristics such as the degree of product differentiation affect the extent to which high R&D intensity will be associated with a high level of market concentration. Technological events and random differences between firms in innovation and growth play an important role in shaping the evolution of market structure and innovative activity in R&D-intensive industries. 41 Summary The proposition that innovation is linked to firm size and industry concentration has generated a large theoretical and empirical literature because of its antitrust implications. Theory and empirical evidence are mostly inconclusive, with some research suggesting that intermediate levels of competition generate the most innovation. Other work supports opening up markets as a means of spurring innovation. Some studies question the magnitude of the product market competition effect on innovation relative to other factors. Other studies emphasise how various industry characteristics jointly influence innovation and market structure. 42 Read the case study “The race to develop human insulin” on ORB before next lecture. 43
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