Startups are a key driver of innovation but are frequently the target of acquisition by incumbent firms. How does this affect the types of products that are developed? We study a model in which an entrant decides whether to develop either a product that is a partial substitute for an...

This paper studies the impact of income inequality on the level of innovative activities in a model where innovations result in quality improvements. The market for quality goods is characterized by a natural oligopoly with three types of consumers - rich, middle class and poor. In general, we...

We analyze firms' investment in product innovation when there are heterogeneous consumer switching costs in markets with an industry leader. We show that higher switching costs require a successful entrant to charge a higher price and increase investment in product innovation to remain...

How does a firm’s market power in existing products affect its incentives to innovate? We explore this fundamental question using granular project-level and firm-level data from the pharmaceutical industry, focusing on a particular mechanism through which incumbent firms maintain their market...

We find a U-shaped relation between industry concentration and innovation. The relation is driven by neck-and-neck industries where firms operate with similar productivity. When industry concentration is low, innovation intensity decreases as concentration increases. However, when industry...

While some broadband providers have called Internet content and application providers free riders on their infrastructure, this is incorrect and misguided. End-users pay for their residential broadband providers for access to the Internet, and content providers pay their own ISPs for...