The downstream firm's decision over R&D for energy-saving

Although energy saving for a firm is very important, the R&D literature has rarely discussed this issue. This paper provides a vertically-related model to analyze how conducting energy-saving R&D affects the upstream firm's pricing decision and downstream firm's energy-saving and output decisions. We show that an increase in energy price may induce the downstream firm to purchase more energy, but less efficient R&D may not induce the downstream firm to purchase more energy. Moreover, more efficient R&D may not increase the energy price under the upstream monopoly case. Finally, social welfare may not improve when the upstream market becomes more competitive.