We analyze the strategic protection decision of an innovator between a patent and secrecy in a setting with horizontally differentiated products. By introducing the patenting decision into the well known circular city model, the impact of the disclosure requirement linked to a patent application...

Die Finanzstruktur eines Unternehmens beeinflußt dessen Wettbewerbs verhalten auf dem Gütermarkt. Dieser Sachverhalt wird im Rahmen von industrieökonomischen Oligopolmodellen aufgezeigt, in denen die Aufnahme von Fremdkapital eine strategische Verpflichtung der Unternehmen für eine bestimmte...

In this paper we empirically investigate the theoretical results obtained in Zaby (2009). From the theoretical model, which introduces the decision to patent into a setting with horizontally differentiated products we deduce several hypotheses and test these empirically. We find that the...

This paper empirically investigates a firm’s propensity to patent. It thereby builds on a theoretical model on a firms' patenting decision in a market with vertically differentiated products. We deduce and empirically test several hypotheses from the theoretical results regarding patenting and...

How do financial constraints influence innovative activities of firms? In a two-period model of price competition with differentiated products we first analyze the incentives to innovate when both firms are self-financed. We then assume that one of the firms is financially constrained and...

We analyze the possibility and consequences of coalition-formation amongst suppliers of retail services. We first provide a framework in which producers of Substitutes have an incentive to Cluster in market places in order to attract consumers dispersed in space. Owing to spatial externalities,...