Joint research and development collaborations under competition law, with a layman’s economic viewpoint

Posted by Social Science Research Network

Joint research and development collaborations under competition law, with a layman’s economic viewpoint

By Bjorn Lundqvist (Stockholm University)

Abstract:     The object of the paper is to dissect the antitrust treatment in the US and under EU law of joint research and development agreements (joint R&D), discussing issues such as innovation and competition in innovation, and whether these issues are taken into consideration when scrutinizing R&D collaborations. The idea is to try to detect what considerations or theory has influenced the competition law treatment of R&D collaborations. Is it industrial economic game theoretical considerations, valuing identification of anticompetitive effects, that has been in the driving seat when Antitrust agencies decided safe harbours and rules for evaluating these collaborations; or is it innovation economics, neo-Schumpeterian and Austrian economic school theory, viewing competition of new innovations as a dynamic process that have been the guiding school of thought; or perhaps something else?

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