Bias in Market R&D Portfolios

Based on a simple "contest" model of product innovation, we provide a necessary and sufficient condition for the market to be biased against risky R&D projects. We find that, in accordance with conventional wisdom and contrary to much of the previous theoretical literature, market comp...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Cabral, Luís M. B. (author)
Format: workingPaper
Language:eng
Published: 2019
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10362/85864
Country:Portugal
Oai:oai:run.unl.pt:10362/85864
Description
Summary:Based on a simple "contest" model of product innovation, we provide a necessary and sufficient condition for the market to be biased against risky R&D projects. We find that, in accordance with conventional wisdom and contrary to much of the previous theoretical literature, market competition implies an equilibrium level of risk which is too low from society's standpoint. The intuition for the result in terms of the "business stealing" effect is provided.