We analyze an overlapping-generations model of duopolistic competition in the presence of consumer switching costs. Competition for established buyers is continually intermingled with competition for new, uncommitted buyers. In equilibrium the firm with attached customers typically specializes...

We study the effects of changes in the ownership or productive assets in a concentrated industry. Using a Cournot model, we analyze (1) investment by an oligopolist, (2) the sale of capital goods by one oligopolist to another, and (3) stock market purchases, whereby one firm acquires a partial...

We study a three-stage, asymmetric duopoly game of R&D rivalry. The stages are: (1) development of an innovation; (2) fixed-fee licensing of the innovation; and (3) sale of the final product. We find that major innovations will not be licensed, but that equally efficient firms will tend to...

Patents, patent litigation, and patent settlements increasingly influence competition. Settlements of patent disputes come in many forms, including licensing and cross-licensing agreements, patent pools, mergers, and joint ventures. While frequently procompetitive, such settlements can stifle...

(no abstract)

We study the optimal pattern of outlays for a single firm pursuing an R&D program over time. In the deterministic case (a) the amount of progress required to complete the project is known and (b) the relationship between outlays and progress is known. In this case it is optimal to increase...

In providing rewards to innovators, there is a tradeoff between patent length and breadth. This article provides conditions under which the optimal patent policy involves infinitely-lived patents, with patent breadth adjusting to provide the required reward for innovation.

There are often benefits to consumers and to firms from standardization of a product. We examine whether these standardization benefits can "trap" an industry in an obsolete or inferior standard when there is a better alternative available. With complete information and identical preferences...

In an experience-goods industry, an entrant who could make positive profits by providing a better deal to buyers than do incumbents may cheat buyers by providing goods of low quality to make even greater profits. If buyers foresee this possibility, they will be unwilling to buy from an entrant....

We show how costless, nonbinding, nonverifiable communication (cheap talk) can achieve partial coordination among potential entrants into a natural-monopoly industry, where the payoffs are qualitatively like the "battle of the sexes." The analysis would apply equally in other economic situations...