Why do some innovators freely reveal their intellectual property? This empirical puzzle has been a focal point of debate in the R&D literature. We show that innovators may share proprietary technology with rivals for free - even if it does not directly benefit them - to slow down competition. By...

The diffusion of new technology among competing firms is of long-standing interest in industrial organization. There is an extensive theoretical literature on technology adoption in which firms can instantaneously deploy a new technology in the market at a cost that is exogenously falling over...