We incorporate strategic considerations into the analysis of a problem that has hitherto been treated in a decision theoretic fashion: the allocation of scarce R&D resources when R&D proceeds in stages. In doing so, we formalize a notion of "system complexity" and investigate its implications...

We present a historical study of technological evolution in the mainframe computer industry. We show that the pattern of innovation in the industry is not well characterized by existing models. The incremental evolution of mainframe system performance as seen by the customer was the result of an...

Property rights over knowledge and its output--intellectual property rights--are often weak. We treat the strength of property rights as a primitive of the environment. We examine the effects of the strengths of these rights on the structure of contracts and relationships employed by firms in...

Industrial organization theory has explored several issues related to licensing, but empirical analyses are extremely rare. We amass a new and detailed dataset on licensing contracts, and use it to present some simple 'facts' concerning licensing behavior. Our analysis reveals robust...

Property rights over knowledge and its output--intellectual property rights--are often weak. We treat the strength of property rights as a primitive of the environment. We examine the effects of the strengths of these rights on the structure of contracts and relationships employed by firms in...