Standards, consortia, and innovation

• Autores: Justus Baron, Yann Ménière, Tim Pohlmann
• Localización: International journal of industrial organization, ISSN 0167-7187, Vol. 36, Nº. 1, 2014, págs. 22-35
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The development of formal ICT standards is a challenging form of collaborative innovation, combining consensus decision making and R&D rivalry. To supplement this formal standard setting process, it has thus become frequent that part of the involved firms creates ad hoc consortia to better align positions on a common technology roadmap. This paper aims to assess whether such consortia can effectively mitigate R&D coordination failure through enhanced cooperation. We first develop a theoretical model showing that depending on the nature of firms' incentives to contribute proprietary technology, different types of R&D coordination failure � namely a Public Good or Rent Seeking problem � may occur in equilibrium. Using a large panel of standards, we then confirm empirically the prediction that consortia have different effects on innovation under a Public Good or Rent Seeking regime. Overall, we observe an increase in innovation after a firm joined a consortium. However, this effect is significantly weakened or even reversed for standards characterized by a strong Rent Seeking regime.