Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Income, Endogenous Market Structure And Innovation, Mei Lin, Shaojin Li, Andrew B. Whinston

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We investigate the effect of income distribution on R&D in a dynamic framework. Our model captures both the infinite R&D race among heterogeneous innovators and a market where successful innovators generate revenues. The market structure of successful innovations is endogenous – firms produce vertically differentiated substitute goods and compete in price. Based on firms' equilibrium market revenues, we derive numerical solutions of the Markov perfect equilibrium innovation rate of the dynamic problem. A key insight in our results is that explicitly modeling price competition and the market structure plays an important role in evaluating the impact of rising income inequality …