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http://hdl.handle.net/10419/26929
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Full metadata record
| DC Field | | Value | | Language |
| dc.contributor.author | | Bechtold, Stefan | | en_US |
| dc.contributor.author | | Höffler, Felix | | en_US |
| dc.date.accessioned | | 2007-12-12 | | en_US |
| dc.date.accessioned | | 2009-08-06T09:27:52Z | | - |
| dc.date.available | | 2009-08-06T09:27:52Z | | - |
| dc.date.issued | | 2007 | | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | | http://hdl.handle.net/10419/26929 | | - |
| dc.description.abstract | | The economic analysis of trade-secret protection has traditionally focused on the interests of companies to conceal information from competitors in order to gain competitive advantage through trade-secret law. This has neglected cases in which the interest is not in concealing information from competi- tors, but from trading partners. We investigate the social e¢ ciency e¤ects of trade-secret protection in such cases. Many results from economic theory state that asymmetric information (and therefore also its legal protection) is socially undesirable since it leads to ine¢ cient trade. At the same time, protecting private information might create incentives for socially desirable investments. We model this trade-o¤ in a simple buyer-seller model and
nd that, indeed, trade-secret protection has ambiguous welfare e¤ects. However, a simple, informationally undemanding rule, conditioning the applicability of legal protection on a minimum investment by the informed party to conceal the information, helps to apply trade-secret protection only when it increases welfare. This rationalizes important features of current legal practice, but sug- gests that the e¤ort to conceal rather than the e¤ort to reveal the information should play a role when deciding whether or not trade secret protection should be granted. | | en_US |
| dc.language.iso | | eng | | en_US |
| dc.publisher | | Max Planck Inst. for Research on Collective Goods Bonn | | en_US |
| dc.relation.ispartofseries | | Preprints of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2007,18 | | en_US |
| dc.subject.jel | | K2 | | en_US |
| dc.subject.jel | | D82 | | en_US |
| dc.subject.ddc | | 330 | | en_US |
| dc.subject.keyword | | disclosure of information | | en_US |
| dc.subject.keyword | | hold-up problems | | en_US |
| dc.subject.keyword | | trade secrets | | en_US |
| dc.subject.stw | | Geschäftsgeheimnis | | en_US |
| dc.subject.stw | | Lieferanten-Kunden-Beziehung | | en_US |
| dc.subject.stw | | Informationsverhalten | | en_US |
| dc.subject.stw | | Wohlfahrtseffekt | | en_US |
| dc.subject.stw | | Theorie | | en_US |
| dc.title | | An economic analysis of trade-secret protection in buyer-seller relationships | | en_US |
| dc.type | | Working Paper | | en_US |
| dc.identifier.ppn | | 551634014 | | en_US |
| dc.rights | | http://www.econstor.eu/dspace/Nutzungsbedingungen | | - |
| Appears in Collections: | | Preprints of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods
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