CentER

Jos Jansen

Abstract:
The thesis contains three essays on incentives in regulation and innovation. The first essay analyzes a problem of optimal regulatory design. Key feature of the problem is that there exists asymmetric information between the regulator and the industry concerning the costs of producing complementary products. The regulatory problem is to organize the industry such that firms' incentives for truthful information revelation and participation are obtained at minimal social cost. The second and third essays analyse problems of dynamic competition in research and development. A special feature is that firms learn about their cost of development while they invest in research. The interaction between the firms' incentives to acquire and communicate information, and their incentives to develop the innovation, is studied. The second essay focuses on the incentive effects of revenue sharing, and the verifiability of acquired information. The focus of the third essay is on effects of disclosure regulation, and correlation development costs on the firms' incentives to invest and disclose information.