This article analyzes the "escape from competition effect" in a step-by-step framework in which a succesful firm may either leapfrog the previous leader or catch-up its technology. Innovation and growth are affected by both the intensity of competition and the probability of leapfrogging.

The Relations Between Science and Technology: what Implications for Public Policy? This article proposes an analysis of the science-technology interactions. The first part is historical and focuses on the transformations that resulted from the passage of a prescriptive knowledge (techniques) to...

This paper explores a licensor's choice between charging a per-unit royalty or a …fixed fee when her innovation is covered by a weak patent, i.e. a patent that is likely to be invali- dated by a court if challenged. Using a general model where the nature of competition is not speci…ed, we show...

The financial crisis has turned into a real economic crisis and then into a public finance crisis: its political and social implications show very obviously, even to the most unaware people, how much economic matters are a social and political phenomenon. Is political economy going to be more...

In this paper we examine the implications of uncertainty over patent validity on patentholders' licensing strategies. Two licensing mechanisms are examined: per-unit royalty and up-front fee.We provide conditions under which uncertain patents are licensed in order to avoid patent litigation. It...

Cet article met l'accent sur le poids des rapports de force dans les relations interentreprises et analyse leur incidence sur la gestion de l'emploi. Nous montrons tout d'abord que le recours à la sous-traitance, parce qu'il conduit les donneurs d'ordres à planifier et contrôler l'activité...

In this paper, we revisit the issue of licensing ‘weak' patents under the shadow of litigation. Departing from the seminal paper by Farrell and Shapiro [2008], we consider innovations of any size and not only ‘small' innovations, and we allow the number of licensees to be less than the...

This article proposes an analysis of the labour process and the division of labour in capitalist production through a reading of Marx and a few others like Babbage and Braverman. The distinction between labour and labour power is used to expose the specificity of the labour process. Cooperation...

This article highlights the importance of power relations in inter-firm relations and analyses their impact on firms' employment management practices. We show, firstly, that the use of subcontracting creates a chain of inter-firm economic dependency because it leads the principal contractor to...

La sous-traitance a connu un essor considérable depuis vingt ans en France. Ces pratiques ne sont pas une réponse à l'instabilité supposée croissante de l'environnement économique. Elles représentent surtout une nouvelle étape dans la subordination réelle de la force de travail au...