Innovation, Competition, and Investment Timing

In our model multiple innovators compete against each other by submitting investment proposals to an investor. The investor chooses the least expensive proposal and the timing of the investment. Innovators privately learn the cost of investing. The investor has to compensate the innovators for their reservation wages, but competition makes screening easier and helps to erode innovators’ informational rents. Consequently, competition leads to faster innovation, because the investor has less need to delay expensive investments. With an endogenous number of innovators investment timing becomes first best.