Innovation is typically a trial-and-error process. While some research paths lead to the innovation sought, others result in dead ends. Because firms benefit from their competitors working in the wrong direction, they do not reveal their dead-end findings. Time and resources are wasted on...

Technological progress is typically a result of trial-and-error research by competing firms. While some research paths lead to the innovation sought, others result in dead ends. Because firms benefit from their competitors working in the wrong direction, they do not reveal their dead-end...

This paper provides a model of strategic exploration in which competing playersindependently explore a set of alternatives. The model captures a strategic tensionbetween preemption—to covertly explore alternatives that the opponent will explorein the future—and prioritization—to explore...

We study the impact of limited records on reputation dynamics, that is, how the set of equilibria and equilibrium payoffs changes in a model in which one long-lived player faces a sequence of short-lived players who observe only limited information about past play (the last K periods of the...