El objetivo de esta tesis es el estudio de distintos problemas económicos en los que el diseño de las instituciones afectan de forma significativa los resultados obtenidos. Es un enfoque teórico motivado por problemas económicos relacionados con el diseño de políticas educativas o industriales. El objetivo es comprender los incentivos de los individuos o las empresas al tomar decisiones y la forma en que la regulación puede influenciar tales decisiones. La tesis consta de tres capítulos. En el primer capítulo, se estudia el papel que las reglas internas a las universidades tienen en la producción de la ciencia y en la formación de nuevas generaciones de investigadores. La calidad de los futuros investigadores afecta el valor de proyectos científicos. En este capítulo se considera que científicos con más experiencia (seniors) influyen en la formación de los científicos con menos experiencia (los juniors). El modelo teórico describe las decisiones de los seniors en dedicar su tiempo a la investigación directa o a la formación de juniors, en el entorno de un proyecto de investigación. La inclusión de un junior en el proyecto mejora los resultados de éste, y la contribución del junior crece con su calidad. Los resultados de asignación del tiempo entre la investigación directa y la formación dependen de las características del proyecto, la preocupación del senior para la formación y la capacidad innata del junior. El modelo realiza un análisis sobre el papel que un regulador puede jugar en la definición del valor de los proyectos y la población futura de científicos independientes. El segundo capítulo analiza el papel que los acuerdos “pay-for-delay” pueden jugar en la estrategia de obtención de patentes de las empresas farmacéuticas de marca. Se considera que las farmacéuticas de marca se enfrentan a la competencia potencial de las empresas de genéricos antes del vencimiento de su patente. El análisis se encuadra dentro en un debate importante: el efecto de la amenaza de los genéricos en las estrategias de innovación, ya que estas conforman el trayecto de mejoras sobre medicamentos de la industria. Para realizar el análisis, se propone un modelo que explicita la decisión de patentar ante la posible entrada de genéricos y teniendo en cuenta la posibilidad de litigio como reacción a esa entrada. Una empresa farmacéutica de marca debe decidir bien desarrollar un nuevo medicamento, bien mejorar la protección de un medicamento ya existente. Se muestra que permitir los acuerdos “pay-for-delay” fomenta una mayor entrada de empresas de genéricos y, en algunos casos, llevan a que las decisiones de la marca se desvíen hacia la protección de los medicamentos existentes, en detrimento del desarrollo de nuevos medicamentos. En el tercer capítulo, se desarrolla un modelo de competencia de servicios en línea y contenido. Internet es un mercado donde los proveedores de servicios de Internet (ISP) sirven de plataforma que conecta los usuarios y los contenidos. Se analizan los incentivos de ISP para invertir en la capacidad de la red, bajo un régimen de red neutral y bajo un régimen discriminatorio. Se considera que los ISP tienen diferentes capacidades de red y los proveedores de contenidos (CP) distribuyen contenidos asimétricos. En el modelo los usuarios deciden a qué proveedor conectarse y navegar por uno de los contenidos. Cuando los ISP discriminan los contenidos, los usuarios migran desde el ISP más grande al más pequeño. El resultado que se obtiene del análisis es que cuando los ISP pueden discriminar y cobran una cuota suficientemente alta por el servicio de prioridad, estos tienen menos incentivos para aumentar la capacidad de la red, en comparación con el régimen de neutralidad de la red. / The objective of this thesis is the theoretical study, under different approaches, of topics in political economy and in industrial organization. The purpose is to understand the incentives of individuals or firms to make certain strategic decisions and how regulatory institutions can deal with such decisions. It is composed of three chapters. In the first chapter, it is studied the role that universities have in producing science and in training the new generations of researchers. The quality of future researchers is very important, since this quality affects the value of future scientific projects. It is considered the case where senior scientists influence the quality of juniors. The theoretical model approaches the incentives of senior scientists to either perform direct research or to training juniors, while working in a project as a team, by focusing on the senior’s decision of how much time to allocate to each task. Juniors’ contribution to projects is increasing in their quality. The results of this decision depend upon the characteristics of the research project, the senior scientist’s concern for training and the expected innate ability of the junior scientist involved. Additionally, an analysis is made on the role of a regulator in defining both the value of scientific projects and the future population of independent scientists. The second chapter analyzes the effect that pay-for-delay settlements may be playing on the patent strategy of brand pharmaceutical firms, when these face potential competition from generic firms before brand drug patent expiration. This is part of an important debate since patent strategy shapes the innovation path of the pharmaceutical industry. To perform the analysis, the framework is a model of patent decision under the prospect of generic entry and litigation as a reaction to entry. A brand pharmaceutical firm must decide to either develop a new drug or to improve the protection of an existing drug, when faced with possible entry of a generic. It is shown at allowing pay-for-delay settlements induce more entry of generic drug firms in brand drug markets and, in some cases, direct brand firms' decisions towards protection of existing drugs, in detriment of new drug development. In the third chapter, it is developed a model of competition in online and content services. It is known that Internet works as a two-sided market, where Internet Service Providers (ISPs) serve as a platform that connects users and contents. The analysis evaluates the incentives of ISPs to invest in network capacity under a network neutral regime and a network discriminatory regime, where a tiered service is offered. ISPs have different network capacities and Content Providers (CPs) distribute asymmetric contents. Users decide which provider to connect to and which content to browse. When ISPs prioritize one of the contents, users migrate from the larger ISP to the smaller. The main result is that when ISPs are allowed to discriminate and charge a sufficiently high fee for the priority service, both ISPs have lower incentives to increase the network capacity, in comparison to the network neutrality regime.

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During the last two decades many pharmaceutical originator companies have struggled with refilling its pipelines with novel pharmaceutical products. At the same time many of these companies have lost patent protection for its most profitable drugs and more are expected to do so in the very near future. When pharmaceutical patents expire it is generally expected that generic manufacturers enter the market with significantly cheaper versions of the pre-patented drugs. Accordingly, generic entry poses strong competitive price pressure on originator companies and the latter may therefore be inclined to hinder these competitors from entering the market. The preparations for generic launch often starts a few years before patent expiry and it is therefore common that patent disputes arise. Patent disputes are not only highly complex, time consuming and costly, the disputes are often also characterized by a high degree of uncertainty to whether or not the patents are infringed and/or valid. Thus, incentives for settling the disputes out of court are often high for both originator and generic undertakings. Legitimate patent settlement agreements are generally not considered to pose any competitive concern. However, the Commission has observed that these settlement agreements has been used to conceal anti-competitive terms by which the originator companies sets out to buy off its generic competitors for delaying its plans to enter the market. These anti-competitive arrangements are more generally known as pay-for-delay settlements. The Commission has issued two decisions against pay-for-delay settlements of which the GC has confirmed the Commission’s assessments. After fulfilling a three-step criteria developed by the Commission, these agreements were considered to have as its object the restriction of competition within the meaning of article 101 (1) TFEU. When an agreement is categorized as a restriction by object it is considered to be by its very nature restrictive of competition, and is therefore presumptively illegal. This approach has been vastly criticized in the legal doctrine for not being sufficiently clear and legally certain. Therefore, the purpose of this essay has been to critically analyze the Commission’s approach in assessing patent settlement agreements. The overall findings of the analysis do however indicate that the Commission’s categorization of pay-for-delay settlements as restrictions of competition by object follows the established rules of EU competition law and should therefore be justified.

Les accords de report d’entrée sont des accords conclus dans le secteur pharmaceutique. Conçus par les laboratoires princeps, ils ont pour objet ou pour effet de retarder l’entrée de concurrents génériques sur le marché. Nés aux États-Unis à la fin des années 1990, ces accords continuent jusqu’à ce jour de générer de nombreux problèmes juridiques. Malgré plus de deux décennies de contentieux, les accords « pay- for-delay » produisent toujours un grand scepticisme outre-Atlantique et ne bénéficient pas d’un régime juridique clair. La difficulté tient à ce que ces accords cristallisent à la fois des problèmes de droit de la concurrence et de droit des brevets. De son côté, l’Union européenne a été récemment touchée par cette pratique. La Commission européenne s’est jusqu’alors saisie de trois cas. À chaque reprise, cette dernière a conclu que les accords restreignaient la concurrence en raison de leur objet. L’institution bruxelloise a ainsi fait preuve d’une grande intransigeance et d’une étonnante sévérité eu égard à sa faible expérience sur le sujet. Ce travail de recherche se propose de répondre aux problèmes posés par les accords de report d’entrée en mobilisant une approche comparatiste. Par ce biais, l’objectif de cette étude est double. D’une part, il s’agira de mieux comprendre le mécanisme qui se cache derrière ces accords. D’autre part, il s’agira de formuler des recommandations afin d’améliorer le contrôle actuel des « pay-for-delay » dans l’Union européenne / Pay-for-delay agreements are agreements concluded in the pharmaceutical sector. Designed by brand laboratories, they have for object or for effect to delay generic entry on the market. Born in the United States in the late 1990s, these agreements continue to generate many legal problems. Despite more than two decades of litigation, the pay-for-delay agreements still produce great skepticism across the Atlantic and do not have a clear legal regime. The difficulty is that these agreements crystallize both competition law and patent law issues. The European Union has recently been affected by this practice. The European Commission has prononced three decisions. In each of them, the commission concluded that the agreements restricted competition by their object. Thus, the commission showed a great intransigence and an astonishing severity in view of its weak experience on the subject. This research aims to address the problems posed by pay-for-delay agreements by mobilizing a comparative approach. In this way, the objective of this study is twofold. On the one hand, the purpose is to better understand the mechanism behind these agreements. On the other hand, the goal is to formulate recommendations to improve the current pay-for-delay control in the European Union