This article explores some questions raised in the recent book by Philippe Aghion, Celine Antonin and Simon Bunel. The central motivation of this book was to know how to resume economic growth after the pandemic crisis. The article emphasizes two particular aspects. One is the the need to compensate for job losses resulting from disruptive technologies. The other one is related to the importance of public choices in guiding the process of creative destruction.

Cet article explore quelques questions traitées dans l’ouvrage récent de Philippe Aghion, Céline Antonin et Simon Bunel. La motivation centrale de l’ouvrage était de savoir comment renouer avec la croissance économique après la crise sanitaire. L’exploration privilégiée ici porte sur deux aspects particuliers. D’une part, la nécessité de pallier les pertes d’emploi résultant des technologies disruptives. D’autre part, l’importance des choix publics en matière d’orientation du processus de destruction créatrice. Classification JEL : 1445, 1511

In this paper we consider the problem of compatibility between networks when the consumers of a network service value the capacity of the network itself rather than the number of users. Compatibili ty decisions are modelled as the outcome of a three stages game where strategies include compatibility, capacity levels and prices. Two main questions are studied. First, will the result of this game differ from the outcome of a joint adoption procedure, where compatibility is adopted if and only if all the firms in the industry agree? Second, what are the effects of compatibility adoption on the network sizes? These questions are examined in a duopolistic framework where competition occurs between vertically differentiated products whose perceived qualities depend on their respective producers and on the competitor's network capacity when compatibility prevails.

Alors que la France consacre, depuis une vingtaine d’années, beaucoup de moyens pour favoriser l’innovation, ses performances en la matière ne sont pas aussi brillantes que celles d’autres pays membres de l’Union européenne. Ce constat est étayé par un état des lieux qui recense les très nombreux dispositifs publics mis en place pour aider les entreprises. Leur justification est de corriger les défaillances de marché mais, au-delà, il existe des défaillances institutionnelles flagrantes. Elles se traduisent par divers obstacles à l’innovation, dont on trouve des traces dans la crise des valeurs à l’origine d’une défiance des citoyens, dans la désillusion collective à l’égard des performances éducatives, dans le décalage entre le monde des universités et celui des entreprises et dans le poids excessif accordé aux insiders, que ce soient les entreprises en place au détriment des nouvelles entreprises, ou les détenteurs d’un CDI sur le marché du travail, au détriment des travailleurs précaires ou jeunes chômeurs. Ces différents obstacles conduisent à envisager un rôle de l’État complémentaire de correcteur des défaillances de marché : celui de favoriser de nouvelles opportunités sociales, afin de créer un climat plus favorable à l’innovation. De telles opportunités sont particulièrement bienvenues dans le contexte de la révolution numérique contemporaine. Outre la refondation des principes gouvernant l’éducation nationale, une autre opportunité serait la mise en place d’une charte communautaire réglementant le fonctionnement des plateformes numériques destinées à la satisfaction des besoins de base. Deux objectifs : i) développer la participation des utilisateurs ainsi que la collaboration entre eux de manière à ce qu’ils soient de véritables partenaires du processus d’innovation ; ii) développer le lien social entre les citoyens pour que l’adaptation aux transformations technologiques soit une étape vers le mieux vivre ensemble et non une menace supplémentaire sur l’emploi.

Cet article est consacre a une mise en perspective des travaux realises par Jean Tirole sur les themes mentionnes par le communique du Nobel, a savoir l'analyse du pouvoir de marche, ses modalites de controle et la regulation des activites de reseaux et de monopole naturel. Il se developpe en trois parties. La premiere explicite pourquoi et comment ces travaux ont participe a un profond renouveau de l'Economie Industrielle. La seconde presente les contributions participant a l'elaboration d'une veritable economie de l'innovation. La troisieme partie se refere aux travaux sur la regulation. Dans chacune de ces parties, l'accent est mis sur trois aspects : i/ l'etat des connaissances au moment de ces travaux, ii/ les instruments d'analyse utilises, et iii/ les enseignements que l'on peut en tirer. L'article cherche egalement a illustrer une caracteristique commune a plusieurs de ces travaux, celle de combiner, d'une part, une recherche theorique conduisant a un veritable renouvellement de nos connaissances dans differents champs de l'analyse economique, et d'autre part, un choix de questions motivees par une forte preoccupation a trouver des moyens de resolution de nombreux problemes economiques contemporains, se fondant sur une serieuse analyse theorique prealable. Abstract: This article is devoted to a perspective of the works of Jean Tirole on the topics mentioned by the Nobel Committee, namely the analysis of market power, its control mechanisms and the regulation of network activities and natural monopoly. It develops in three parts. The first explains why and how these works have contributed to a profound renewal of the Industrial Organization field by offering strong theoretical foundations. The second presents different contributions that advance our understanding of the Economics of Innovation. The third part refers to the works on the Economics of Regulation. In each part, the focus is on three aspects: i / the state of knowledge at the time of the work, ii / the analytical instruments and iii / the lessons that can be drawn. The article seeks to illustrate a common feature in many of these works, that of combining theoretical research leading to the knowledge's enlargement in various fields of economic analysis, and a choice of questions motivated by a strong concern to find solutions to some contemporary economic problems, based on a serious prior theoretical analysis.

This article is devoted to a perspective of the works of Jean Tirole on the topics mentioned by the Nobel Committee, namely the analysis of market power, its control mechanisms and the regulation of network activities and natural monopoly. It develops in three parts. The first explains why and how these works have contributed to a profound renewal of the Industrial Organization field by offering strong theoretical foundations. The second presents different contributions that advance our understanding of the Economics of Innovation. The third part refers to the works on the Economics of Regulation. In each part, the focus is on three aspects: i / the state of knowledge at the time of the work, ii / the analytical instruments and iii / the lessons that can be drawn. The article seeks to illustrate a common feature in many of these works, that of combining theoretical research leading to the knowledge's enlargement in various fields of economic analysis, and a choice of questions motivated by a strong concern to find solutions to some contemporary economic problems, based on a serious prior theoretical analysis.

The main objective of this paper is to analyze the links between product market competition, innovation and growth. In a step-by step innovation model we explicitly introduce the distinction between knowledge and technology information flows. Patents protect their holders from being imitated or copied but do not protect them against the possibility that less efficient rivals master the disclosed knowledge, allowing them to start a new race from the cutting edge of the technology rather than from their own technology. We show that this distinction has important consequences. The knowledge information flow increases the positive effect of competition on innovation and growth while the technology information flow has a negative effect. We also decompose the overall effect of competition as the sum of two opposite effects: a negative level effect (competition lowers individual profits in industries where all firms are symmetric) and a positive spread effect (the spread of profits between asymmetric firms increases with the intensity of competition). These effects encompass the selection effect of competition. Finally we give support to the idea that a higher short run competition does not favor the long run competition.

The contemporary tensions between patents and competition no longer reside in the traditional trade-off between the exclusionary right given to an inventor to encourage innovation, and the welfare loss induced by the market power associated to this right. They rather result from three important distortions of the patent system that create conflicts between patents and competition on the product market, the technology market, and the innovation market. The first distortion is related to the existence of dubious or weak patents: too many patents are granted to applications of bad quality according to the patentability criteria. This increases the uncertainty attached to patents, reduces the credibility of the system and calls into question the justification of the patent as a protective mechanism. Second, the configuration of a patent, originally designed in the context of an isolated innovation, is not quite adapted to the context of sequential innovations. While sequential patents requires fine limitations between successive generations of innovations, the strengthening of intellectual property rights, including the extension of the patentable subject matters, opened the door to opportunistic behavior and adversely affected the technological exchanges. Third, the emergence of complex technologies, in which the use of a large number of fragmented patents is necessary to produce a new product, implies the necessity to coordinate the behavior of numerous patent holders. Some entrants in these complex technologies are struck by the imperfect coordinated behavior of these patent holders as illustrated in different settings such as the pooling of complementary patents and the licensing of essential patents by the Standard Setting Organisation members. Very often, patents serve to create ambushes or to capture unjustified rents through excessive license fees, which in turn create barriers to entry for new competitors in the innovation market. Two important consequences of these distortions are derived. First, the resolution of the conflicts cannot rely exclusively on the application of the antitrust law. Second, the distortions lead to a very expensive judicial implementation of the patent system.

Book's Review:Louis Kaplow, Competition Policy and Price Fixing, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 2013

This paper investigates the choice of a licensing mechanism by the holder of a patent whose validity is uncertain. We provide sufficient conditions of a general nature under which the licensor prefers to use a per-unit royalty contract. In particular we show that this is the case for the holders of weak patents if the strategic effect of an increase in a potential licensee's unit cost on the equilibrium industry profit is positive. The latter condition is shown to hold in a Cournot (resp. Bertrand) oligopoly with homogeneous (resp. differentiated) products under general assumptions on the demands faced by firms. As a byproduct of our analysis, we contribute to the literature on the cost paradox in oligopoly by offering some new insights of independent interest regarding the effects of cost variations on Cournot and Bertrand equilibria.

Dans la phase des vagues d'innovations contemporaines, phase qu'on assimile a la troisieme revolution industrielle ou encore a l'ere du numerique, les relations entre innovations, gains de productivite et emplois font l'objet de vives controverses, notamment aux Etats-Unis, pays phare en matiere d'innovation. D'une part, la croissance des gains de productivite connaitrait un certain ralentissement dans le secteur non manufacturier, conduisant a une croissance economique faible. D'autre part, les innovations contemporaines ne creeraient plus autant d'emplois qu'apres la deuxieme revolution industrielle. Plus precisement, la crise de l'emploi est a l'origine de la crise de croissance. La crise de l'emploi se manifeste elle-meme par le fait que les technologies numeriques sont a l'origine d'une bipolarisation des emplois selon qu'ils requierent des tâches routinieres ou non routinieres, les premieres etant substituables par des technologies numeriques. Ces observations soulevent evidemment une importante question : les innovations contemporaines ne serviraient-elles plus a mettre en marche la dynamique de la croissance et de l'emploi ? Ou bien ne s'agit-il que d'une phase transitoire, en quete de nouvelles perspectives ? Ce travail plaide en faveur du deuxieme terme de l'alternative et il procede pour cela en deux temps. Premierement, il examine les differents arguments qui sous tendent les inquietudes et controverses sur les contreperformances des innovations contemporaines. Deuxiemement, il presente quelques interpretations et suggere les perspectives sociales ouvertes par l'evolution des technologies numeriques qui constituent le coeur des innovations contemporaines.

Cet article propose une reflexion generale sur le systeme des brevets. Trois questions sont d'abord examinees : 1. Le brevet favorise-t-il l'innovation ? 2. La propriete intellectuelle est-elle comparable aux autres formes de propriete ? 3. La protection par le brevet est-elle complementaire de la concurrence ? Deux critiques fondamentales sont ensuite adressees : 1. L'attribution abusive d'un brevet a des nombreuses demandes ne satisfaisant pas les criteres de brevetabilite, ce qui pose la question de la qualite des brevets. 2. L'incompatibilite du systeme unique des brevets a la diversite technologique et l'innovation cumulative, ce qui entraine un cout excessif d'implementation.

This paper explores a licensor's choice between charging a per-unit royalty or a fixed fee when her innovation is covered by a weak patent, i.e. a patent that is likely to be invali- dated by a court if challenged. Using a general model where the nature of competition is not speci ed, we show that the patent holder prefers to use a per-unit royalty scheme if the strategic e¤ect of an increase in a potential licensee's unit cost on the aggregate equi- librium pro t is positive. To show the mildness of the latter condition, we establish that it holds in a Cournot (resp. Bertrand) oligopoly with homegenous (resp. heterogenous) products under very general assumptions on the demands faced by rms. As a byproduct of our analysis, we contribute to the oligopoly literature by o¤ering some new insights of independent interest regarding the e¤ects of cost variations on Cournot and Bertrand equilibria.

The Relations Between Science and Technology: what Implications for Public Policy? This article proposes an analysis of the science-technology interactions. The first part is historical and focuses on the transformations that resulted from the passage of a prescriptive knowledge (techniques) to a scientifically based knowledge (technology). The contemporaneous relations between science and technology are much more characterized by their interdependence, in the sense that they are in a co-evolution process, rather than by the linear model in which the richness of the industrial applications results from the development of an autonomous fundamental research activity. The second perspective, more policy-oriented, tries to explain the persistent gap between the United States and the European Union in terms of their GDP per capita and productivity growth, in the period preceding the last financial and economic clash. The reviewed explanations of this gap include the performance of the academic activity, the gap between the scientific knowledge and its transformation in the economy, the research and development intensity, the importance of the churning effect in the destructive creation process and the role of the young innovative firms.

La teoria economica, al considerar que las patentes son instrumentos de politica publica para fomentar la innovacion y la difusion de la tecnologia, conduce principalmente a tres conclusiones. En primer lugar, las patentes no tienen por que ser siempre el medio de proteccion mas eficaz para que los inventores recuperen sus inversiones en I+D, sobre todo cuando la imitacion es costosa y ser el primero en lanzar un producto al mercado genera ganancias importantes. En segundo lugar, los requisitos de novedad y altura inventiva para la concesion de patentes deberian aplicarse de forma estricta para evitar que se concedan patentes para invenciones de escaso valor social, que solo aumentan el coste social del sistema de patentes. En tercer lugar, los parametros de longitud (duracion legal) y amplitud (ambito de proteccion) de las patentes podrian utilizarse para incentivar el desarrollo de invenciones con alto valor social. Mas alla de estas tres implicaciones, la teoria economica aboga asimismo por enfocar la politica de patentes desde el punto de vista del diseno de mecanismos de incentivos: un sistema de patentes optimo podria basarse en un menu con diferentes grados de proteccion, donde una mayor proteccion implicaria tarifas mas elevadas, y donde los inventores podrian elegir por si mismos el nivel de proteccion que deseen, pagando la tarifa correspondiente.

Résumé L’objet de cet article est d’analyser les relations entre la science et la technologie selon un double prisme. Le premier, de nature historique, cherche à comprendre comment s’est opéré le passage des savoir-faire fondés sur des connaissances prescriptives (techniques) à des savoir-faire fondés sur des connaissances scientifiques (technologies) et quelles en sont les conséquences sur le plan économique. Le détour historique permet également de caractériser les relations contemporaines comme relevant davantage d’un processus coévolutif science-technologie plutôt que d’une relation verticale où le développement des applications technologiques en aval serait entièrement dépendant des progrès de la recherche fondamentale en amont. Le deuxième prisme, plus orienté vers les questions de choix publics en matière de politiques scientifiques et technologiques, avance quelques explications de l’écart persistant de croissance entre l’Union européenne et les Etats-Unis avant la dernière crise. Sont ainsi successivement examinés les rôles respectifs de l’université, en tant qu’acteur économique, de l’écart éventuel entre le niveau d’avancement dans la production des connaissances et celui de leur diffusion dans l’économie, de l’insuffisance des efforts de recherche et développement et enfin des spécificités de la dynamique industrielle en termes de destruction créatrice et de la démographie des entreprises innovantes.

Patents are probabilistic rights. We set up a multi-stage model in which choosing between patent and trade secrecy is aected by three parameters : the patent strength de…ned as the probability that the right is upheld by the court, the cost of imitating a patented innovation relative to the cost of imitating a secret innovation, and the innovation size de…ned as the extent of the cost reduction. The choice of the protection regime is the result of two eects: the damage eect evaluated under the unjust enrichment doctrine and the eect of market competition that occurs under the shadow of infringement. We …nd that large innovations are likely to be kept secret whereas small innovations are always patented. Furthermore, medium innovations are patented only when patent strength is su¢ ciently high. Finally, we investigate a class of patent licensing agreements used to settle patent disputes between patent holders and their competitors.

L’insuffisance des marchés financiers et leurs défaillances dans la triple fonction d’allocation des ressources, d’évaluation du risque et du contrôle de gestion ont été invoquées pour justifier les privatisations. Le bilan que l’on peut dresser de l’expérience de privatisation française comporte des acquis positifs : l’actionnariat populaire et l’actionnariat salarié se sont largement développés, les contraintes budgétaires de l’État ont été assouplies, le marché boursier français a pu être élargi sans effet d’éviction financière marqué, la flexibilité des entreprises concernées semble avoir été accrue.

This chapter tries to identify the sources and the nature of the European technology gap relative to its competitors, in particular the US. In the first part, taxonomies based on disaggregated sectoral data allow an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the European industries according first to the intensity of their production or their usage of ICT and second to Pavitt's classification relative to the nature of the innovative regimes. The second part examines how the characteristics of industrial dynamics, at the heart of the creative destruction process, differ on the two sides of the Atlantic. Comparisons are made by using longitudinal firm-level data. Finally, in the third part of the chapter structural policy questions are examined.