Managerial Delegation, Product R&D and Subsidies on R&D Investment Costs

This paper studies owners’ optimal designs of incentive schemes in a market with managerial firms competing in prices as well as in product research and development (R&D) investment in which owners use a linear combination of gross profits which are defined to be sales revenue minus production costs, sales revenue and R&D costs to evaluate managers’ performances. The main contribution of our research is showing that owners not only deflate R&D costs to induce managers to invest more in product R&D but also place different weights on production costs and R&D costs optimally. If product R&D is highly efficient, managerial delegation improves consumers’ surplus at cost of firms’ profits which is sharply contrasting to the standard conclusion of sales delegation under price competition. Moreover, managerial delegation may achieve Pareto efficiency if product R&D is mildly inefficient. Finally, we find that copyright protection benefits consumers’ surplus but could reduce social welfare.