Lambardi, Germán Daniel2012-02-272012-02-272010-03-011900-1568http://hdl.handle.net/10906/65273In this paper I study how innovation investment in a software duopoly is affected by the fact that one of the firms is, or might become Open Source. Firms can either be proprietary source (PS) or open source (OS) and have different initial technological levels. An OS firm is a for profit organization whose basic software is OS and it is distributed for free. The OS firm, however, is able to make profits from selling complementary software and, on the cost side, it receives development help from a community of users. I first compare a duopoly composed by two PS firms with a mixed duopoly of a PS and OS firm and I find that a PS duopoly might generate more innovation than a mixed duopoly if the initial technological gap between firms is small. However if this gap is large, a PS duopoly generates less innovation than a mixed duopoly. I then extend the setting to allow PS firms to switch to OS or to remain PS. A PS firm wants to become OS if it gets behind enough in the technological race against a competitor. In find that the outside option to become OS might soften competition on innovation since the technological leader prefers to reduce his innovation investment to avoid the OS switch of the follower. Therefore, although the switch to OS could generate higher investment levels ex-post it might generate lower investment ex-ante. In this context I find that a government subsidy to OS firms could be potentially harmful for innovation.1-38 páginasDigitalengEL AUTOR, expresa que la obra objeto de la presente autorización es original y la elaboró sin quebrantar ni suplantar los derechos de autor de terceros, y de tal forma, la obra es de su exclusiva autoría y tiene la titularidad sobre éste. PARÁGRAFO: en caso de queja o acción por parte de un tercero referente a los derechos de autor sobre el artículo, folleto o libro en cuestión, EL AUTOR, asumirá la responsabilidad total, y saldrá en defensa de los derechos aquí autorizados; para todos los efectos, la Universidad Icesi actúa como un tercero de buena fe. Esta autorización, permite a la Universidad Icesi, de forma indefinida, para que en los términos establecidos en la Ley 23 de 1982, la Ley 44 de 1993, leyes y jurisprudencia vigente al respecto, haga publicación de este con fines educativos Toda persona que consulte ya sea la biblioteca o en medio electróico podrá copiar apartes del texto citando siempre la fuentes, es decir el título del trabajo y el autor.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/http://biblioteca2.icesi.edu.co/cgi-olib?session=-1&infile=details.glu&loid=241300&rs=5540745&hitno=-1info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessAtribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 4.0 Internacional (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)EconomicsEconomíaSoftwareInversionesEmpresasInnovación tecnológicahttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_93fcinstname:Universidad Icesireponame:Biblioteca Digitalrepourl:https://repository.icesi.edu.co/http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2