Competition policy, innovation, and diversity

More than a century ago Alfred Marshall made the claim that the “tendency to variation is a chief source of progress”, pointing to three intriguing phenomena that make up the heart of this book – innovation, competition and diversity. The thesis derives an initial set of competition policy proposals for the review of mergers and R& D joint ventures in high technology markets. These implications are based on a mainly evolutionary economic analysis of the interplay between economic variety, reflected in diverse business strategies pursued by firms, and the competitive race for economic and technological superiority among companies. This book represents one of the first attempts to bring these important facets of economic interaction and competitive success together and to analyze them from an economic as well as from a firm perspective. By uniting both perspectives it offers the reader the opportunity to assess questions of progress and competition from a macro and micro level.