/pdf/the-theory-of-industrial-organization-19bejph0ej.pdf

The Theory of Industrial Organization

The East Asian miracle: Economic growth and public policy: By the World Bank. (New York: Oxford University Press for the World Bank, 1993. 389 pp. $19.95, paper.)

This paper studies the impact of a regional free trade agreement, MERCOSUR, on technology upgrading by Argentinean firms. To guide empirical work, I introduce technology choice in Melitz’s (2003) model of trade with heterogeneous firms. The joint treatment of the technology adoption and exporting choices shows that the increase in revenues produced by trade integration can induce exporters to upgrade technology. An empirical test of the model reveals that firms in industries facing higher reductions in Brazil’s import tariffs increase their investment in technology faster and exporters upgrade technology faster than other firms in the same industry.

/pdf/trade-liberalization-exports-and-technology-upgrading-lgob5luyt0.pdf

Trade Liberalization, Exports, and Technology Upgrading: Evidence on the Impact of MERCOSUR on Argentinian Firms

Investor Psychology and Security Market Under- and Overreactions

r 9HE purpose of this paper is to explore a hypothesis, based on acIcumulating evidence, regarding the character of inventions likely to issue from the research laboratories of the large industrial corporations. Simply put, this hypothesis may be stated as follows: with few exceptions, the large industrial laboratories are likely to be minor sources of major (radically new and commercially or militarily important) inventions; rather they are likely to be major sources of essentially "improvement" inventions. Put more precisely, the hypothesis states that the proportion of all minor inventions originating in the large industrial laboratories is likely to exceed the proportion of all major inventions originating in these laboratories. Note that the stress on the relative importance of these laboratories as sources of improvement inventions is not necessarily a denigration of the economic importance of this contribution. The cumulative effect of these improvement inventions may be, and often has been, of substantial importance over long periods of time for advancing technology, investment opportunities, and economic growth. The stress on improvement inventions as the principal product of the research laboratories of the large industrial corporations is meant simply to emphasize that, whatever the importance of their contributions, most of the latter is not likely to involve radically new inventive activity. I cannot claim originality for this hypothesis. After it suggested itself in the course of my investigations, I discovered that others, some of them in the most unlikely positions,2 had earlier said much the same thing. But, apart from occasional remarks, I can find no discussions attempting to explain or justify it. And because, if reasonably accurate, it has numerous ramifications, I have felt the need to set down an extended analysis of 1 I wish to thank members of the Seminar on Law and Technology, sponsored by the University of Wisconsin Law School under the auspices of the Ford Foundation, for their many helpful comments on this paper. Especially do I wish to thank Professors Jacob Schmookler, Robert Merrill, John Stedman, Harrison White, and John Heath. 2 See particularly the statement quoted below (p. 114) of D)r. Frank Jewett, former president of Bell Laboratories.

The journal of political economy

http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~haoli/teaching/econ515a/kovac-mylovanov07.pdf

Stochastic Mechanisms in Settings without Monetary Transfers: The Regular Case

The important characteristic of international competition between developed and less developed countries is vertical product differentiation, where firms' quality choices represent strategic decisions. Unlike the previous literature, we allow for a leadership in quality choice and the possibility of imitation and learning by the domestic firm. We compare both positive and normative aspects of this setup in the free trade and the strategic trade policy regime and show that the value of leadership may change dramatically when moving from free trade to trade policy. We also identify conditions under which trade policy can initiate the change in the quality ladders (known as quality reversal) and demonstrate that such a policy has a somewhat limited scope to achieve it. Thus, free trade can still be an optimal tradearrangement.

/pdf/international-competition-in-vertically-differentiated-39d6umbnxv.pdf

International Competition in Vertically Differentiated Markets with Innovation and Imitation: Trade Policy Versus Free Trade

https://www.economicdynamics.org/meetpapers/2010/paper_795.pdf

Technological leadership and persistence of monopoly under endogenous entry: Static versus dynamic analysis

https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/17331/1/427.pdf

Optimal Sequential Delegation

The competition between firms from developed (DC) and less developed countries (LDC) is typically in vertically differentiated products. We consider a model of price competition between DC and LDC firms with quality choice and imitation, and study the effects of ex post tariffs. The government faces a choice between commitment to free trade and imposing a tariff. Tariffs can lead to change in the rank of qualities compared to free trade. We identify conditions under which this quality reversal takes place, and show that quality reversal is necessary for trade policy to be superior to free trade in welfare terms.

/pdf/international-competition-in-vertically-differentiated-3ebh2dyrew.pdf

Eugen Kovac

Papers

Stochastic Mechanisms in Settings without Monetary Transfers: The Regular Case

International Competition in Vertically Differentiated Markets with Innovation and Imitation: Trade Policy Versus Free Trade

Technological leadership and persistence of monopoly under endogenous entry: Static versus dynamic analysis

Optimal Sequential Delegation

International Competition in Vertically Differentiated Markets with Innovation and Imitation: Trade Policy Versus Free Trade