Technical Change, Pecuniary Externality and the Market Failure

First, a small open economy is analyzed to show that even a complete and competitive market may fail to produce Pareto-efficient outcomes under conditions of changing technology. It is mainly because price- taking agents can make the prices they face by changing their technology or technique of production. It is then shown that this result holds equally true for the regional sub-economies of this economy. A legal provision of R&D tax/subsidy based on payroll changes is shown to be a second best policy that corrects the market failure with a small dead- weight loss. This policy does not require actual tax collection or subsidy payment and may be used by regional governments to correct technological market failure at regional levels. The provision improves the functioning of the market by eliminating the mismatch between the type of production sector and the type of technological/technical change they introduce.