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Singapore Management University

Operations and Supply Chain Management

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Contract design

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Full-Text Articles in Business

Turning The Tables In Research And Development Licensing Contracts, Niyazi Taneri, Pascale Crama Sep 2021

Turning The Tables In Research And Development Licensing Contracts, Niyazi Taneri, Pascale Crama

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Research and development (R&D) collaborations between an innovator and her partner are often undertaken when neither party can bring the product to market individually, which precludes value creation without a joint effort. Yet, the uncertain nature of R&D complicates the monitoring of effort, and the resulting moral hazard reduces a collaboration’s value. Either party can avoid this outcome by acquiring the capability that is missing and then taking sole ownership of the project. That approach involves two types of risks: one related to whether the other party’s capability will be acquired and one related to how well it will be …


Step By Step: The Benefits Of Stage-Based R&D Licensing Contracts, Pascale Crama, Bert De Reyck, Zeger Degraeve Feb 2013

Step By Step: The Benefits Of Stage-Based R&D Licensing Contracts, Pascale Crama, Bert De Reyck, Zeger Degraeve

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We examine how a licensor can optimally design licensing contracts for multi-phase R&D projects when he does not know the licensee’s project valuation, leading to adverse selection, and cannot enforce the licensee’s effort level, resulting in moral hazard. We focus on the effect of the phased nature typical of such projects, and compare single-phase and multi-phase contracts. We determine the optimal values for the upfront payment, milestone payments and royalties, and the optimal timing for outlicensing. Including multiple milestones and accompanying payments can be an effective way of discriminating between licensees holding different valuations, without having to manipulate the royalty …


Milestone Payments Or Royalties? Contract Design For R&D Licensing, Pascale Crama, Bert De Reyck, Zeger Degraeve Nov 2008

Milestone Payments Or Royalties? Contract Design For R&D Licensing, Pascale Crama, Bert De Reyck, Zeger Degraeve

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We study how innovators can optimally design licensing contracts when there is incomplete information on the licensee's valuation of the innovation, and limited control over the licensee's development efforts. A licensing contract typically contains an up-front payment, milestone payments at successful completion of a project phase, and royalties on sales. We use principal-agent models to formulate the licensor's contracting problem, and we find that under adverse selection, the optimal contract structure changes with the licensee's valuation of the innovation. As the licensee's valuation increases, the licensor's optimal level of involvement in the development-directly or through royalties-should decrease. Only a risk-averse …