R&D policy and competition in a schumpeterian growth model with heterogeneous firms

This paper presents a second-generation schumpeterian growth model to investigate the existence of possible links between firm's size, competition stiffness and the effectiveness of R&D policy. In the model, the step size of innovation is randomly drawn from a Pareto distribution, and firms are heterogeneous in terms of market power. The paper finds that the optimal R&D policy is to subsidise R&D and not to tax it, and that more intense competition enlarges the gap between free-market R&D investment and the optimal outcome. However, the paper also finds that the short-run impact on welfare of R&D policy is always negative, and that the recovery time of the welfare loss as a result of the subsidy is negatively related to firm's market power.