Fatma Nur Karaman KabadurmuşSajal LahiriLahiri, SajalKaraman, Fatma Nur2025-10-062014193516822194-61081935-168210.1515/bejeap-2012-00132-s2.0-84907402489https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84907402489&doi=10.1515%2Fbejeap-2012-0013&partnerID=40&md5=5813d0994dd1da05494951ff64586c55https://gcris.yasar.edu.tr/handle/123456789/9985https://doi.org/10.1515/bejeap-2012-0013This paper examines how the degree of competition affects incentives to innovate in product quality in a symmetric Cournot oligopolistic model. We model product quality in a quality-ladder framework and find an inverted-U shaped relationship between the number of firms in an industry and R&D efforts in innovation. We test this theoretical prediction using firm-level data for Eastern European and Central Asian countries from the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey and find strong support for it. © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Englishinfo:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccessCompetition, Eeca, Product Quality, R&dEECAR&DCompetitionProduct QualityArticle