IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jecrev/v66y2015i3p393-407.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are Public Firms Always Less Innovative than Private Firms?

Author

Listed:
  • Yanfang Zhang
  • Weijun Zhong

Abstract

type="main"> The effect of information spillovers is analysed in a mixed duopoly where a profit-maximizing private firm and a market-share-maximizing public firm decide whether to invest in a process innovation. It is shown that, when the spillover effect is rather strong, the public firm innovates in order to acquire a larger market share, while the private firm prefers that its rival invests in the new technology and reaps the benefits of technological leakages if investment costs are moderate. Thus, when information spillovers are taken into account, the public firm sometimes behaves more innovatively than the private firm, which is contrary to the well-known results. Furthermore, in a mixed duopoly where only the public firm invests, its average cost exceeds that of its competitor, but investment remains an efficient strategy compared with non-investment.

Suggested Citation

  • Yanfang Zhang & Weijun Zhong, 2015. "Are Public Firms Always Less Innovative than Private Firms?," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 66(3), pages 393-407, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:jecrev:v:66:y:2015:i:3:p:393-407
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/jere.12047
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bibhas Saha & Rudra Sensarma, 2011. "Mixed Ownership, Managerial Incentives And Bank Competition," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(4), pages 385-403, October.
    2. repec:adr:anecst:y:1994:i:33:p:08 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. John S. Heywood & Guangliang Ye, 2009. "Partial Privatization In A Mixed Duopoly With An R&D Rivalry," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(2), pages 165-178, April.
    4. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:12:y:2005:i:6:p:1-6 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Delbono, Flavio & Denicolo, Vincenzo, 1993. "Regulating innovative activity : The role of a public firm," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 35-48, March.
    6. repec:bla:econom:v:71:y:2004:i:284:p:671-688 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. repec:bla:ausecp:v:41:y:2002:i:2:p:185-90 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Poyago-Theotoky, Joanna, 1998. "R&D Competition in a Mixed Duopoly under Uncertainty and Easy Imitation," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 415-428, September.
    9. Lihua Han & Hikaru Ogawa, 2012. "Market‐Demand Boosting And Privatization In A Mixed Duopoly," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(1), pages 125-134, January.
    10. Lorenz NETT, 1993. "Mixed Oligopoly With Homogeneous Goods," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(3), pages 367-393, July.
    11. Nett, Lorenz, 1994. "Why private firms are more innovative than public firms," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 639-653, December.
    12. Juan Carlos Bárcena-Ruiz, 2008. "Are the public firms more innovative than the private ones?," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2008(2), pages 157-167.
    13. Yanfang Zhang & Shue Mei & Weijun Zhong, 2014. "New technology adoption in a Cournot oligopoly with spillovers," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 112(2), pages 115-136, June.
    14. Lorenz Nett, 1994. "The Role of Sunk Costs in Entry Deterrence in a Mixed Oligopolistic Market," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 33, pages 113-131.
    15. Hikaru Ogawa & Ming Hsin Lin, 2005. "Cost reducing incentives in a mixed duopoly market," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 12(6), pages 1-6.
    16. Jeffry M. Netter & William L. Megginson, 2001. "From State to Market: A Survey of Empirical Studies on Privatization," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(2), pages 321-389, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jorge Fernández-Ruiz, 2020. "Mixed duopoly in a Hotelling framework with cubic transportation costs," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 133-149, August.
    2. Levin, Mark (Левин, Марк) & Matrosova, K. (Матросова, К.), 2016. "Research, Modeling and Process Management Dissemination of Innovations in Socio-Economic Systems [Исследование, Моделирование И Управление Процессами Распространения Инноваций В Социально-Экономиче," Working Papers 1443, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
    3. Yanfang Zhang & Qianwen Tan & Yuchang Ji, 2023. "Input subsidy versus output subsidy for green R&D in a supply chain," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(1), pages 97-126, January.
    4. Zhang, Yanfang, 2019. "To enter or not to enter? A competitive analysis with minimum quality standards," Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (MATCOM), Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 508-527.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Levin, Mark (Левин, Марк) & Matrosova, K. (Матросова, К.), 2016. "Research, Modeling and Process Management Dissemination of Innovations in Socio-Economic Systems [Исследование, Моделирование И Управление Процессами Распространения Инноваций В Социально-Экономиче," Working Papers 1443, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
    2. Kazuhiro Ohnishi, 2014. "Sequential Mixed Competition with a Foreign Joint-stock Firm," International Journal of Social Sciences and Management Studies (IJSSMS), The Economics and Social Development Organization (TESDO), vol. 1(2), pages 38-52, June.
    3. Basak, Debasmita & Wang, Leonard F.S., 2019. "Cournot vs. Bertrand in mixed markets with R&D," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 265-271.
    4. Kazuhiro Ohnishi, 2011. "A Quantity-Setting Mixed Duopoly with Inventory Investment as a Coordination Device," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 12(1), pages 109-119, May.
    5. Maria José Gil-Moltó & Joanna Poyago-Theotoky & Vasileios Zikos, 2011. "R&D Subsidies, Spillovers, and Privatization in Mixed Markets," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 78(1), pages 233-255, July.
    6. Kazuhiro Ohnishi, 2009. "Capacity Investment and Mixed Duopoly with State-Owned and Labor-Managed Firms," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 10(1), pages 49-64, May.
    7. Bogoroditskaya, N., 2021. "Tax evasion and R&D subsidy in a mixed market," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 51(3), pages 30-49.
    8. Ohnishi, Kazuhiro, 2018. "Inventory Holding and a Mixed Duopoly with a Foreign Joint-Stock Firm," MPRA Paper 88223, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Wu, Xiaoting & Mukherjee, Arijit & Zeng, Chenhang, 2024. "Privatization and innovation in a vertical structure," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    10. Kazuhiro Ohnishi, 2013. "A Two-production-period Model with State-owned and Labour-managed Firms," Institutions and Economies (formerly known as International Journal of Institutions and Economies), Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya, vol. 5(1), pages 41-56, April.
    11. Toshihiro Matsumura & Daisuke Shimizu, 2010. "Privatization Waves," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 78(6), pages 609-625, December.
    12. Vasileios Zikos, 2010. "R&D Collaboration Networks in Mixed Oligopoly," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 77(1), pages 189-212, July.
    13. Ishida, Junichiro & Matsushima, Noriaki, 2009. "Should civil servants be restricted in wage bargaining? A mixed-duopoly approach," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(3-4), pages 634-646, April.
    14. Sang-Ho Lee & Timur K. Muminov, 2021. "Endogenous Timing of R&D Decisions and Privatization Policy with Research Spillovers," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 505-525, December.
    15. Ohnishi, Kazuhiro, 2019. "Capacity choice in an international mixed triopoly," MPRA Paper 94051, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:12:y:2007:i:8:p:1-6 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Rupayan Pal, 2010. "How much should you own? Cross-ownership and privatization," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2010-015, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    18. Vasileios Zikos, 2007. "Equilibrium and Optimal R&D Roles in a Mixed Market," Discussion Paper Series 2007_08, Department of Economics, Loughborough University, revised Mar 2007.
    19. Shoji Haruna & Rajeev K. Goel, 2017. "Output subsidies in mixed oligopoly with research spillovers," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 41(2), pages 235-256, April.
    20. Jiaqi Chen & Sang‐Ho Lee & Timur K. Muminov, 2022. "R&D spillovers, output subsidies, and privatization in a mixed duopoly: Flexible versus irreversible R&D investments," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(3), pages 879-899, July.
    21. Juan Carlos Bárcena-Ruiz & María Begoña Garzón, 2020. "Partial privatization in an international mixed oligopoly under product differentiation," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 131(1), pages 77-100, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jecrev:v:66:y:2015:i:3:p:393-407. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/jeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.