Decision Making on Strategic Environmental Technology Licensing: Fixed-Fee versus Royalty Licensing Methods

Because of a deterioration in the quality of the environment, this paper studies the effects of the environment and the economy on environmental technology licensing in a homogeneous Cournot duopoly model in order to reduce environmental pollution and hence improve social welfare. To this end, two licensing methods — namely, a fixed-fee licensing method and a royalty licensing method — are compared. It is found that a high emission tax rate induces the innovator to not license the environmental technology to the licensee under the fixed-fee licensing method. As for social welfare, a large innovation scale of environmental technology does not guarantee that social welfare will be maximized. Finally, a large innovation scale of environmental technology is likely to increase consumer surplus if the marginal environmental damage is significant. Consumers are likely to prefer royalty licensing to fixed-fee licensing. This conclusion differs from Wang’s finding in 2002.