Roy Seminar (ADRES)

Du 12/03/2018 de 17:00 à 18:30

Salle R1-09, Campus Jourdan, 48 boulevard Jourdan, 75014 Paris

VANNETELBOSCH Vincent (CORE, Université catholique de Louvain)

R&D Network Formation with Myopic and Farsighted Firms

We analyze the formation of bilateral R&D collaborations in an oligopoly when each ?rm bene?ts from the research done by other ?rms it is connected to. Firms can be either myopic or farsighted when deciding about the links they want to form. Which R&D networks are likely to emerge with farsighted or myopic ?rms? Which ?rms are more likely to occupy key positions in the R&D network? What is the relationship between the stable R&D network structures and the social welfare? We propose the notion of myopic- farsighted stable set to determine the R&D networks that emerge when some agents are myopic while others are farsighted. A myopic-farsighted stable set is the set of networks satisfying internal and external stability with respect to the notion of myopic-farsighted improving path. Stable R&D networks consist of two components where the larger group of ?rms derive from their R&D collaborations a greater competitive advantage relative to the other group. If there is a majority of myopic ?rms, they form two components of nearly equal size. However, if more than half of the ?rms are farsighted, the largest component comprises roughly three-quarters of ?rms, with farsighted ?rms having in average a higher degree and betweenness centrality than myopic ?rms. However, some myopic ?rms may have a high (if not the highest) betweenness centrality. Thus, even if myopic ?rms are less active in terms of R&D collaborations they may play a crucial role for spreading the innovation within the component. Suppose now that, in addition of myopic and farsighted private ?rms, some ?rms are public ones. We show that (myopic or farsighted) public ?rms can help to stabilize some e¢ cient R&D networks by occupying key positions in the networks. Finally, we study the dynamics of R&D networks starting from an initial state where all ?rms are myopic, and where at each subsequent period some myopic ?rms become farsighted.