Do Research Joint Ventures Serve a Collusive Function?

Every year thousands of firms are engaged in research joint ventures (RJV), where all knowledge gained through R&D is shared among members. Most of the empirical literature assumes members are non-cooperative in the product market. But many RJV members are rivals leaving open the possibility that firms may form RJVs to facilitate product market collusion. We examine this by exploiting variation in RJV formation generated by a policy change that affects the collusive benefits but not the research synergies associated with a RJV. We use data on RJVs formed between 1986 and 2001 together with firm-level information from Compustat to estimate a RJV participation equation. After correcting for the endogeneity of R&D and controlling for RJV characteristics and firm attributes, we find the decision to join is impacted by the policy change. We also find the magnitude is significant: the policy change resulted in an average drop in the probability of joining a RJV of $41\%$ among computer and semiconductor manufacturers, $34\%$ among telecommunications firms, and $33\%$ among petroleum refining firms. Our results are consistent with research joint ventures serving a collusive function.

International R&D formations and strategic environmental policy

We examine relations between strategic environmental policy, international R&D cartels and research joint ventures (RJVs), using a third-country model with Cournot duopoly. We indicate that forming an R&D/RJV cartel reduces governments' incentives to extract rent from consumers in the third country. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we find that social welfare under R&D cartels with full information sharing, i.e., RJV cartels, cannot surpass that under R&D/RJV competition, whereas forming an R&D/RJV cartel works well for environmental investment. Among the policy implications, we show that governments can maximize global welfare by collectively determining whether to allow R&D/RJV cartels.