Bilateral Models of Cross-Licensing for Smart Products
研究了价格竞争下两家不对称议价能力的公司进行双边交叉许可的动机，发现当质量改进技术持有者生产成本足够高时，企业有动机交叉许可；与数量竞争相比，价格竞争下的交叉许可导致更高价格和生产者剩余，但更低消费者剩余和社会福利。
Motivated by the new practice of cross-licensing and price competition in smart products, as well as the lack of cross-licensing literature, this article develops a theoretical framework to investigate the incentive for bilateral cross-licensing between two competing firms with asymmetric bargaining power under price competition in smart products. In this article, one firm possesses quality-improving innovation, and another offers cost-reducing innovation for smart products. We find regardless of cost-reducing innovation scale, when the production cost of a holder of quality-improving technology is high enough, the competing firms have the motivation to cross-licensing; compared with a quantity competition, cross-licensing in price competition draws a higher price and producer surplus, but lower consumer surplus and poorer social welfare. This is an interesting finding for the discussion over whether a Bertrand price competition is more efficient than a Cournot quantity competition; and price competition, plus the stability of tacit collusion in cross-licensing, requires that participants have moderate bargaining power. Our article provides a potential explanation for the use of cross-licensing in the smart product industry with price competition, as well as management insights for decision makers by considering different effects elicited by cross-licensing of the smart products.