Competitive experimentation with private information: The survivor's curse

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Moscarini, Giuseppe; Squintani, Francesco
• 署名单位: University of Essex; Yale University; University of Brescia
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2009.12.001
• 发表日期: 2010
• 页码: 639-660
• 关键词: Learning; experimentation; private information; Survivor's curse

摘要

We study a winner-take-all R&D race between two firms that are privately informed about the arrival rate of an invention. Over time, each firm only observes whether the opponent left the race or not. The equilibrium displays a strong herding effect, that we call a 'survivor's curse.' Unlike in the case of symmetric information, the two firms may quit the race (nearly) simultaneously even when their costs and benefits for research differ significantly. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.