期刊名称:CORE Discussion Papers / Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (UCL), Louvain
出版年度:2010
卷号:2010
期号:1
出版社:Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (UCL), Louvain
摘要:The paper explores the incentives for an incumbent firm to acquire an entrant willing to sell a product
innovation, rather than openly compete with this entrant and, in case of acquisition, the incentives to sell
simultaneously both the existing products and the new one, rather than specializing on a single variant. We
prove that, in some circumstances, an incumbent firm can find it profitable to make an acquisition proposal to
the entrant in order to deter entry. Nevertheless, in this acquisition scenario, a product proliferation strategy is
never observed at equilibrium. Rather, the incumbent restricts itself to offer either its own variant or the
product innovation produced by the entrant, depending on the quality differential existing between them. It
follows that, while being available for sale, sometimes the innovation simply remains unexploited