Innovate or Imitate? Who Survives? Who Benefits? Agent-Based Modeling of a Technology-Driven Competitive Industry

Abstract

In this paper, we study the behavior of innovation and imitation among a group of firms in a competitive industry. To survive, firms have two fundamental choices. They can choose to be innovative firms that develop cost-reducing technology by their own efforts. Alternatively, they can also choose to be an imitating firm, which simply ¡§steals¡¨ the technology from the innovative firms. The choice is adaptive in the sense that firms are able to learn from their experiences. In a standard model of supply and demand, we address the existence and characterization of the competitive equilibrium, including the survival dynamics of firms and implications for social welfare and intellectual property law. Our analytical approach is based upon what known as agent-based computational economics, which is now a standard paradigm for modeling an economy as a complex adaptive system. Within this paradigm, we employ a genetic algorithm to represent firms¡¦ strategic behavior and learning dynamics.

本文採取演化性計算 (evolutionary computation) 中的遺傳演算法 (genetic algorithm，GA)作為架構代理人基計算經濟 (agent-based computational economics，ACE) 模型的工具。藉由參數值調整進行不同實驗，模擬廠商的創新與仿冒行為。在總體面的分析中，本文針對創新與仿冒文化形成的原因、產業別間研發屬性的差異、創新，獨占與福利間的關係、市場中研發廠商與仿冒廠商家數的穩定性等議題加以探討，以了解不同市場條件設定下所演化出的豐富社會現象及其對經濟動態過程之影響。此外本文也由個體面的角度研究領導廠商的成功因素，並對轉型廠商稟賦及策略加以追蹤，討論蛙跳 (leapfrogging)的可能性與發生條件。