Innovation by entrants and incumbents

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Acemoglu, Daron; Cao, Dan
• 署名单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Georgetown University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2015.01.001
• 发表日期: 2015
• 页码: 255-294
• 关键词: economic growth; industry structure; INNOVATION; Firm size distribution

摘要

We extend the basic Schumpeterian endogenous growth model by allowing incumbents to undertake innovations to improve their products, while entrants engage in more radical innovations to replace incumbents. Our model provides a tractable framework for the analysis of growth driven by both entry of new firms and productivity improvements by continuing firms. The model generates a non-degenerate equilibrium firm size distribution driven by entry of new firms and expansion exit of existing firms. When there is also costly imitation preventing any sector from falling too far below the average, the stationary firm size distribution is Pareto with an exponent approximately equal to one (the so-called Zipf distribution). (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.