Tim Hellmann gives a talk at the EARIE 2016 in Lisbon (August 26-28, 2016) on R&D Investments under Endogenous Cluster Formation.

Abstract:
We study investments in R&D and the formation of R&D clusters of firms which are competitors in the market. In a three stage game, firms first decide on long-term R&D investment, then form research clusters according to the unanimity game introduced in Bloch(1995), and finally compete in quantities. For some range of investment costs, equilibria with no-investment co-exist with equilibria where a large fraction of firms invest in R&D. Because of the effects of R&D investment on cluster membership, firms tend to over-invest compared to a scenario where research clusters are ex-ante fixed and also compared to the welfare optimum.