The impact of public policies on innovation and imitation: The role of R&D technology in growth models

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Cheng, LK; Tao, ZG
• 署名单位: Hong Kong University of Science & Technology; University of Hong Kong
• 刊物名称: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0020-6598
• DOI: 10.1111/1468-2354.00011
• 发表日期: 1999
• 页码: 187-207
• 关键词: quality ladders

摘要

It has been shown under the assumption of linear R&D technology that a government subsidy to imitative (innovative) R&D decreases (increases) imitative effort but increases (decreases) innovative effort, and that strengthening the enforcement of patent laws leads to a decrease in innovative R&D but to an increase in imitative R&D. By replacing the linear R&D technology with a sufficiently convex R&D technology, we have shown that the counter-intuitive results are reversed. In the case of linear R&D technology, the socially optimal R&D policies and activities are indeterminate, but with convex R&D technology, optimal innovation and imitation subsidies would induce the market to generate socially 'balanced' innovative and imitative activities.