1# 区域经济爱好者
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AbstractThis paper presents a positive theory of diffusion of technology. It examines a two-period model. Strategic firms are confronted by a process technology with an uncertain reduction in marginal costs. The uncertainty is automatically resolved between the two periods. Adoption in the first period yields a leadership advantage relative to firms that do not adopt, while simultaneous adoption by firms results in a Cournot equilibrium. The firms' strategies are both production quantities and ‘adoption timings’'. These decisions are made at the same time. Thus, firms face a trade-off between early adoption and possibly reaping first mover advantages on one hand and deferring the adoption decision until after all the uncertainty is resolved but face the possibiity of being a follower in the market. Interestingly, an endogenously determined diffusion rate is obtained as a pure strategy Nash equilibrium of this game. This means that while adoption and diffusion of technology results with probability one, diffusion of a bad innovation is also possible. It is also shown that in a market with one large firm and a nonatomic continuum of small firms, there is a unique Nash equilibrium in which the large firm adopts first and is a Stackelberg leader and all the small firms decide whether or not to adopt after the uncertainty is resolved. The implication of this result is simply that the diffusion of technology is to some extent determined by the relative size of firms in the industry.