Essays on the Competitive Dynamics of Innovation and Product Quality

Essays on the Competitive Dynamics of Innovation and Product Quality
Author: Michael Stefan Mills
Publisher:
Total Pages: 110
Release: 2014
Genre:
ISBN: 9781321021530

Firms compete through means other than pricing and advertising. In particular, firms compete through manipulating the quality of their products. In the pharmaceutical industry, firms compete by innovating to create a better quality medicine. The first chapter examines pharmaceutical firms' strategic response to innovate. The comparison of words used in job advertisements to words used in the International Classification of Diseases are analyzed to measure the amount of innovative activity a firm conducts in a given disease category. From this novel dataset, the results indicate that a firm increases its innovative activity due to its competitors' increase in innovative action. The second chapter extends a model with vertically differentiated products to include a "brand" firm's incentive to market a medium quality product (pseudo-generic) to compete with their original high quality product and a competitor's low quality product. Under certain assumptions of consumer heterogeneity, an incumbent firm will market a pseudo-generic only when it can deter the entry of multiple competitors. The third chapter looks at quality competition in the airline industry by analyzing the changes in the total flight frequency for a city-pair due to the merger of two airlines. The results suggest that a merger can decrease flight frequency by as much as 97 flights per month on some routes. The decreases in flight frequency are almost entirely due to the merger removing a competitor (one of the merging partners) from the route. Consequently, the total change in frequency on most routes is less severe or insignificant all together.

Essays on Competitive Dynamics

Essays on Competitive Dynamics
Author: Markus Schimmer
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2012
Genre:
ISBN:

Die vorliegende Dissertation besteht aus drei empirischen Studien, welche zur akademischen Diskussion über dynamisches Wettbewerbsverhalten ("Competitive Dynamics Research") beitragen. Die erste Studie entwickelt und testet eine verhaltensorientierte Theorie wie sich Firmen innerhalb von Strategischen Gruppen über die Zeit hinweg umpositionieren. Die zweite Studie ergänzt frühere Bemühungen um eine aktivitätsbasierte Theorie des Wettbewerbsverhaltens, indem sie aufzeigt, wie disruptive Marktereignisse das Wettbewerbsverhalten in kompetitiven Märkten beeinflussen. Die dritte Studie verdeutlicht im Kontext von Desinvestitionen, dass Kapitalmärkte konzertierte Abfolgen von Wettbewerbszügen bevorzugen.

R & D, Innovation and Industrial Structure

R & D, Innovation and Industrial Structure
Author: Boris Maurer
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 167
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3642959253

The common topic of this collection of studies is the interaction between innova tive activity of firms and industrial structure. I call this interaction technological competition. Firms invest into R&D in order to open up new or enlarge existing profit opportuni ties for the future. A successful R&D-project leads to an innovation. An innovation introduced into the market changes the competitive structure of the industry. At the same time the structure of the industry shapes the incentives to invest into R&D. What matters for these incentives is not so much the existing structure but the expected dynamic evolution of that industry which is again dependent on the innovative choice of firms. Amongst other things, the dynamic of industry evolution is therefore rooted in the dynamics of ongoing innovative activity. Of course, this is not always the whole sto ry. There are (more or less) exogenous factors, like knowledge spillovers from other sectors of the economy, technological breakthroughs in basic research that directly influence the state of competition in an industry by providing additional profit op portunities, etc. The same is true for exogenous changes in upstream markets or demand conditions. My main interest here is not primarily to understand these exogenous forces, but to develop a theory of how the process of firms' innovative activity is shaped by competition and in turn shapes future competition between firms in an industry.

PhD Series

PhD Series
Author: Damoun Ashournia
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2013
Genre:
ISBN:

Essays on Dynamic Competition and Academic Entrepreneurship - Dissertation Executive Summary

Essays on Dynamic Competition and Academic Entrepreneurship - Dissertation Executive Summary
Author: Huyen Pham
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013
Genre:
ISBN:

My dissertation focuses on dynamic firm competition and academic entrepreneurship. The first essay studies the dynamics and equilibrium outcomes of a duopoly in which firms make decisions about both capacity expansion and cost reduction. The second essay is an extension of the framework used in the first essay to study the strategic roles of exogenous spillovers and absorptive capacity. The third essay examines the effects of the Bayh-Dole Act (1980) and the Pasteur's Quadrant effects on a faculty's research efforts over a career life cycle, taking into account research preferences and productivities, spillovers among different types of research knowledge, and monetary payoffs. The last essay further looks at a professor's transition between academia and entrepreneurship.

Strategic Competition, Dynamics, and the Role of the State

Strategic Competition, Dynamics, and the Role of the State
Author: Jamee K. Moudud
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 183
Release: 2010-01-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1849805407

Economists from all heterodox traditions of political economy will benefit from reading this book both for its confirmation of many of the basic precepts of classical, Marxian and Harrodian economics and the challenges it poses for its trenchant Post-Keynesian/Kaleckian critics, for whom short-period analytics of effective demand can and should be extended to long-period analysis. While his critique of the principle of effective demand for the long run would leave many Post-Keynesians uncompromising, the strong Keynesian view held by the author on the necessity for public-sector capital budgeting, and a developmental state upon which ought to be grafted a long-term growth policy based on public investment would certainly find strong resonance in the context of the global economic crisis. Mario Seccareccia, University of Ottawa, Canada and Editor of the International Journal of Political Economy Jamee K. Moudud s book is in the best tradition of dynamic economics stemming from the work of Harrod and Kalecki. Moudud demonstrates a solid command of the intellectual history of his subject. His insightful critical survey of the growth literature focuses on an often neglected dimension of the topic, i.e. the question of how real-world firms make decisions about capacity utilization and capacity creation. This discussion grounds Moudud s subsequent theoretical analysis of the disequilibrium dynamics of cyclical growth. The book is that rarest of things both a useful teaching tool and an original contribution in its own right. Graduate students will find it a superb introduction to the analytical issues that are at the center of economists debates about growth, economic development and the business cycle. Growth theorists will find in it much to stimulate and challenge their thinking. Gary Mongiovi, St John s University, US and Co-Editor, Review of Political Economy The pillar upon which this magnificent must-read volume was erected is strategic competition, a theory that cogently authenticates the concentration and centralization of capital. This stands in stark contrast against the fanciful neoclassical perfect completion and its methodological double, imperfect competition. In Strategic Competition, Dynamics, and the Role of the State, Jamee Moudud has taken a novel approach to the study of macrodynamics. Here turbulence and crisis are deemed inseparable from the dynamics of capitalist economies and the last three decades of neoliberal policies are eloquently called into question. Moudud also provides a timely and effective critique of both new Keynesian and post-Keynesian approaches to macroeconomic theory and policy. Cyrus Bina, University of Minnesota (Morris Campus), US and an Editor of the Journal of Critical Studies on Business and Society The current economic crisis has thrown into disrepute the representative agent models at the forefront of the microfoundations agenda. Jamee Moudud takes a different approach, going back to first principles to re-establish the theory of the firm and the nature of market competition. The result is an important addition to two ongoing quests in macroeconomics: integrating the principle of effective demand into long run macrodynamics; and relating aggregate outcomes to firm behaviour and the functioning of markets. Mark Setterfield, Trinity College, US This is a very timely, refreshing and challenging book, an excellent contribution in the areas of competition and growth. It blends beautifully the microeconomic analysis of the Oxford Research Group, at the center of which is the idea of strategic competition; and an extension of Harrod s work on growth. The discussions of uncertainly and excess capacity, and the interpretation of Harrod s work are outstanding. This combination leads one to think about policy issues such as taxation or public investment in a novel way, as the implications differ not only from those that derive from neoclassical models, but also from Post-Keynesi

Competitive Advantage

Competitive Advantage
Author: Michael E. Porter
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 474
Release: 2008-06-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1416595848

Now beyond its eleventh printing and translated into twelve languages, Michael Porter’s The Competitive Advantage of Nations has changed completely our conception of how prosperity is created and sustained in the modern global economy. Porter’s groundbreaking study of international competitiveness has shaped national policy in countries around the world. It has also transformed thinking and action in states, cities, companies, and even entire regions such as Central America. Based on research in ten leading trading nations, The Competitive Advantage of Nations offers the first theory of competitiveness based on the causes of the productivity with which companies compete. Porter shows how traditional comparative advantages such as natural resources and pools of labor have been superseded as sources of prosperity, and how broad macroeconomic accounts of competitiveness are insufficient. The book introduces Porter’s “diamond,” a whole new way to understand the competitive position of a nation (or other locations) in global competition that is now an integral part of international business thinking. Porter's concept of “clusters,” or groups of interconnected firms, suppliers, related industries, and institutions that arise in particular locations, has become a new way for companies and governments to think about economies, assess the competitive advantage of locations, and set public policy. Even before publication of the book, Porter’s theory had guided national reassessments in New Zealand and elsewhere. His ideas and personal involvement have shaped strategy in countries as diverse as the Netherlands, Portugal, Taiwan, Costa Rica, and India, and regions such as Massachusetts, California, and the Basque country. Hundreds of cluster initiatives have flourished throughout the world. In an era of intensifying global competition, this pathbreaking book on the new wealth of nations has become the standard by which all future work must be measured.