Abstract

A theoretical search model applied to collaboration among firms with a public authority as an intermediate is the primary issue of this paper. Specifically, we consider the Europartenariat event since it represents a good opportunity to study a problem of interaction between the decision to search a collaboration and the exchange of information involved in a bargaining process. Search costs play a central role in this framework. We show the optimality of a strategy as to the number of contacts with host companies in a problem of dynamic programming. Precisely, solutions in a search model with the presence of fixed and quadratic costs are derived in terms of an optimal threshold number of contacts and of an optimal interval of the number of contacts, respectively. For the case of fixed costs, we find that the minimum number of contacts for which the firm accepts to participate is negatively related to the expected profit and to the probability of contacting one firm with a common project of collaboration. This is confirmed by a simulation. In the quadratic cost hypothesis we investigate learning phenomena and revelation of private information.