Abstract
Technological innovation is one of the major factors in determining the long term performance of firms and economies. Here, this subject is analyzed from the point of view of the relationship between the innovative behaviour of a given firm within an oligopolistic industry and its market share. As a matter of fact, the firm capacity to change is closely connected to the size of its R&D activity which generate directly product and/or process innovation, and also develops the firm’s ability to identify, assimilate, and exploit knowledge from the external environment, taking advantage of the public research effort and even of the rivals’ R&D expenditure (Tilton 1971; Allen 1977; Mowery 1983; Cohen and Levinthal 1989; Campisi and Nastasi 1993). The traditional approach to industrial innovative activity devotes little attention to this absorptive capacity of R&D: following Arrow (1962) and Nelson (1959), economists have assumed that any innovation created by one firm provides usable information to other firms at little or no cost, so according to an unpatented innovation the status of a public good. In other terms, the intra-industry technological knowledge transfer requires negligible R&D efforts (Spence 1984; Tirole 1988; Quirmbach 1993).
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Allen T J (1977) Managing the Flow of Technology. MIT Press Cambridge
Arrow K J (1962) Economic Welfare and the Allocation of Resources for Invention. In: Nelson R R (Ed) The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity. Princeton University Press Princeton
Basar T and G J Olsder (1982) Dynamic Noncooperative Game Theory. Academic Press New York
Campisi D and A Nastasi (1993) Competitive Pressure and R&D Strategies in an Oligopolistic Industry. Atti del IV Convegno Nazionale AilG. Roma 29 ottobre
Cohen MW and DA Levinthal (1989) Innovation and Learning: the Two Faces of R&D. The Economic Journal 99:569–596
Friedman J (1990) Game Theory with Applications to Economics. Oxford University Press New York
Grossman G M and C Shapiro (1986) Optimal Dynamic R&D Programs. Rand Journal of Economics. 17:581–593
Kamien M and N Schwartz (1972) Timing of Innovations under Rivalry. Econometrica 40:43–60
Kamien M and N Schwartz (1982) Market Structure and Innovations. Cambridge University Press
Mowery D C (1983) The Relationship between Intrafirm and Contractual Forms of Industrial Research in American Manufacturing, 1900–1940. Explorations in Economic History 20:351–374
Nelson R R (1959) The Simple Economics of Basic Research. Journal of Political Economics 67:297–306
Quirmbach H C (1993) R&D: Competition, Risk, and Performance. Rand Journal of Economics 24:157–197
Reinganum J (1982) A dynamic game of R&D: patent protection and competitive behavior. Econometrica 50:671–688
Spence A M (1984) Cost Reduction, Competition, and Industry Performance. Econometrica 52:101–121
Tilton J H (1971) International Diffusion of Technology: the Case of Semiconductors. Brookings Institutions Washington DC
Tirole J (1988) The Theory of Industrial Organization. MIT Press. Cambridge Massachusetts
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1997 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Campisi, D., La Bella, A., Mancuso, P., Nastasi, A. (1997). Firms R&D Investments, Innovation and Market Shares. In: Bertuglia, C.S., Lombardo, S., Nijkamp, P. (eds) Innovative Behaviour in Space and Time. Advances in Spatial Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-60720-2_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-60720-2_5
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-64524-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-60720-2
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive