Working Papers

(papers available on request)

"Arrow’s Paradox and Markets for Non-Proprietary Information"

Abstract. Arrow's information paradox asserts that demand for undisclosed information is undetermined. Reassessing the paradox, I argue that the buyer can know the relevance of information before it is disclosed, and the uncertainty shifts to concern the capability of the seller in acquiring the knowledge and her reliability in disclosing it. These three factors determine the buyer's reservation price. Consequently, I show how differences in capability and reliability between the sellers may revoke the appropriation problem of non-proprietary information in the presence of unrestricted resale.

"Duplication of Effort and R&D Spillovers"

Abstract. Duplication of effort has not been explicitly considered in the standard oligopoly models of R&D and product market competition. This omission is shown to be important in three respects. First, its introduction makes the R&D output spillover model more economically plausible without additional restrictions on the R&D costs or spillovers. Second, with an increasing rate of duplication, asymmetric equilibria emerge and the symmetric equilibrium may even disappear, which makes the predictions of the model more aligned with the empirical evidence. Third, R&D cooperation remains desirable when there is little uncertainty and considerable duplication whereas the opposite holds for R&D competition