Role of competition policy in the US innovation system

Abstract

US competition policy, with its recent emphasis on encouraging the commercialization of new technological innovations, exhibits the flexibility to embrace new national competitiveness objectives. Competition policy's traditional economic goal, of broadening consumer choice and improving market efficiency, is now extended to encourage continuous innovation (both technological and organizational) in a network-based, global business environment. Antitrust enforcement in recently formed industries exhibiting dynamic innovation requires a new theoretical foundation (utilizing Schumpeterian, evolutionary, Austrian, path-dependence, and resource-based perspectives) to create competition guidelines for agency intervention, as well as remedies that will not interfere with the 'creative destruction' that characterizes the innovation process.