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Duke Economics Working Paper #96-07

Firm Size, Rivalry and the Extent of the Market in Endogenous Technological Change

Pietro F. Peretto

Abstract

Evidence shows that firms build their market position by accumulating knowledge protected by secrecy, patents and other appropriation devices. I explore the implications of this fact in a model economy where oligopolistic firms establish in-house R&D programs. In symmetric equilibrium, the number of firms determines concentration and firm size. These determine the scale and the efficiency of R&D operations and the rate of innovation. The number of firms, moreover, is endogenous and determined jointly with the rate of growth by the zero-profit condition. This property yields new results. For example, the scale effect of population size may be negative. The market allocation of resources is not Pareto optimal. I discuss the nature of this distortion.

Keywords: Growth, Rivalry, Market Structure, Product Variety, Spillovers.

JEL: E10, L16, O31, O40

Published in European Economic Review, Vol. 43, No. 9, October 1999, pp. 1747-1773.