Jay Pil Choi

Tying, investment, and the dynamic leverage theory

The idea that an incumbent supplier may tie two complementary products to fend off potential entrants is popular among practitioners yet is not fully understood in formal economic theory. This article makes sense of the argument by formally deriving a dynamic version of the old leverage doctrine. We show that when an incumbent monopolist faces the threat of entry in all complementary components, tying may make the prospects of successful entry less certain, discouraging rivals from investing and innovating. Tie-in sales may reduce consumer and total economic welfare. Copyright 2001 by the RAND Corporation.

Network Externality, Compatibility Choice, and Planned Obsolescence

This paper attempts to provide a formal theory of planned obsolescence based on incompatible technologies in the presence of network externalities. The author explores how a monopolists ability to make the new product incompatible with the old version of a product constrains the optimal dynamic behavior of the monopolist. The social optimum and the market equilibrium are compared. Finally, the possibility of quality distortion is considered as a commitment mechanism to the future compatibility choice. Copyright 1994 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Cooperative R&D with product market competition

Abstract A simple model RJV is presented to examine the private and social incentives for cooperative R&D in the presence of product market competition. The key assumption to our analysis was that the spillover rate increases with cooperation in R&D and total industry profit decreases as the spillover rate increases due to intensified post-innovation competition. This leads to a negative impact of cooperative R&D, introducing a trade-off in the model. It is shown that private firms prefer a cooperative R&D to non-cooperative R&D competition when spillover rates are high and that the private incentive for cooperative R&D is less than the social incentive.

Patent Pools and Cross-Licensing in the Shadow of Patent Litigation

This paper develops a framework to analyze the incentives to form a patent pool or engage in cross-licensing arrangements in the presence of uncertainty about the validity and coverage of patents that makes disputes inevitable. It analyzes the private incentives to litigate and compares them with the social incentives. It shows that pooling arrangements can have the effect of sheltering invalid patents from challenges. This result has an antitrust implication that patent pools should not be permitted until after patentees have challenged the validity of each other’s patents if litigation costs are not too large.

A model of piracy

Abstract This paper develops a simple model of software piracy to analyze the short-run effects of piracy on software usage and the long-run effects on development incentives. We consider two types of costs associated with piracy: the reproduction cost that is constant across users and the degradation cost that is proportional to consumers’ valuation of the original product. We show that the effects of piracy depend crucially on the nature of piracy costs. Policy implications concerning copyright protection are also discussed.

Tying in Two-Sided Markets with Multi-Homing

This paper analyzes the effects of tying arrangements on market competition and social welfare in two-sided markets when economic agents can engage in multi-homing; that is, they can participate in multiple platforms in order to reap maximal network benefits. The model shows that tying induces more consumers to multi-home and makes platform-specific exclusive contents available to more consumers, which is also beneficial to content providers. As a result, tying can be welfare-enhancing if multi-homing is allowed, even in cases where its welfare impacts are negative in the absence of multi-homing. The analysis thus can have important implications for recent antitrust cases in industries where multi-homing is prevalent.

Brand Extension as Informational Leverage

The marketing literature refers to the concept of brand capital and provides empirical evidence that firms with a large stock of well-established brands have an advantage in introducing new products. This paper develops a theory of brand extension as a mechanism for informational leverage in which a firm leverages off a goods reputation in one market to alleviate the problem of informational asymmetry encountered in other markets. It is shown that brand extension helps a multi-product monopolist introduce a new experience good with less price distortion. Thus, the paper provides a theoretical foundation for the concept of brand capital.

Technology transfer with moral hazard

This paper develops an incomplete contract model of the licensing relationship that is susceptible to the moral hazard problem. The optimal contractual form of licensing derived in the model generates predictions that seem to be consistent with actual practice. For instance, the introduction of inputs that are not contractible and costly explains the prevalence of royalty contracts in the licensing relationship. Moreover, the model is able to relate the size of the royalty rate to the parameters that represent the environments under which the concerned parties operate. The framework also provides a rigorous evaluation of the recent debate on the issue of technology licensing and competitiveness in the global economy. In addition, the difficulty that the licensor faces in controlling the use of information in the development of related products in the future can also explain the rationale for including grant-back clauses in licensing contracts. Finally, the model can be naturally extended to analyze the choice of a technology holder between direct investment and licensing in an attempt to serve a foreign market.

Irreversible Choice of Uncertain Technologies with Network Externalities

In this article, I explore the problem of sequential and irreversible technology choice in the presence of network externalities when the technologies stochastically evolve over time. Early potential users are shown to adopt an irreversible technology too early compared to the social optimum. The effect of increasing the uncertainty of the technologies on an early potential users decision is analyzed. I find that the sponsor of new emerging technology might choose a research strategy that is too safe. I also study the consequences of allowing side payments between generations of consumers and demonstrate that an ex post optimal standardization policy can impair ex ante social welfare.

Herd Behavior, the 'Penguin Effect,' and the Suppression of Informational Diffusion: An Analysis of Informational Externalities and Payoff Interdependency

This article analyzes a technology adoption process in which the effect of informational spillover interacts with network externalities. The interplay of informational externalities and payoff interdependency induces risk-averse and clustering behavior in the technology-adoption process. The analysis differs from the herd behavior literature in focusing on how the herd behavior of subsequent users influences the initial adoption decision. Moreover, herd behavior in this article stems from each agents desire to inhibit the revelation of new information that can be used in a way detrimental to her, rather than from each agents effort to free-ride on information contained in the decisions made by predecessors.