Voluntary R&D cooperation in experimental duopoly markets

In the paper I examine in an experiment whether for two different levels of technological spillovers, cooperative R&D behavior voluntarily arises when firms have communication possibilities. It is assumed that in the output market, firms compete `a la Cournot. Experimental results indicate that when technological spillovers are complete and subjects communicate, R&D decisions converge to the cooperative level, while in other cases R&D decisions converge towards the Nash equilibrium.