Relative Performance and R&D Competition

This paper formulates a duopoly model in which firms care about relative profits as well as their own profits. Our purpose is to investigate the relationship between the weight of relative performance and R&D expenditure. We find a non-monotone relationship between the weight of relative performance in their objectives and their R&D levels. Both highly reciprocal (altruism) and negative reciprocal attitudes yield high levels of R&D, while the intermediate situations yield low levels of R&D.