MARKET COMPETITION, R&D AND FIRM PROFITS IN ASYMMETRIC OLIGOPOLY*
研究了低成本企业与高成本企业竞争的古诺模型，发现低成本企业利润可能随高成本企业数量增加而上升，这激励它们帮助而非损害竞争对手，并联系到福特公开披露技术的实践。
We investigate a Cournot model with strategic R&D investments wherein efficient low-cost firms compete against less efficient high-cost firms. We find that an increase in the number of high-cost firms can stimulate R&D by the low-cost firms, while it always reduces R&D by the high-cost firms. More importantly, this force can be strong enough to compensate for the loss that arises from more intense market competition: the low-cost firms' profits may indeed increase with the number of high-cost firms. An implication of this result is far-reaching, as it gives low-cost firms an incentive to help, rather than harm, high-cost competitors. We relate this implication to a practice known as open knowledge disclosure, especially Ford's strategy of disclosing its know-how publicly and extensively at the beginning of the 20th century.