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on Intellectual Property Rights |
| By: | Stefano Breschi (Cespri, Bocconi University, Milano, Italy.); Francesco Lissoni (Cespri, Bocconi University, Milano; Università degli studi di Brescia, Italy.); Fabio Montobbio (Cespri, Bocconi University, Milano; Università degli studi dell’Insubria, Varese,Italy.) |
| Abstract: | Based on longitudinal data for a matched sample of 592 Italian academic inventors and controls, the paper explores the impact of patenting on university professors’ scientific productivity, as measured by publication and citation counts. Academic inventors (university professors who appear as designated inventors on at least one patent application) publish more and better quality papers than their colleagues with no patents, and increase their productivity after patenting. Endogeneity problems are addressed using instrumental variables and applying inverse probability of treatment weights. The beneficial effect of patenting on publication rates last longer for academic inventors with more than one patent. |
| Keywords: | scientific productivity, university patents, technology transfer. |
| Date: | 2006–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cri:cespri:wp189&r=ipr |
| By: | Goktepe, Devrim |
| Abstract: | One of the most interesting indicators to show the change in the socio-economic role of universities in the last several decades has been the use of university patenting. However except some individual studies in European countries (e.g. Finland, Norway, Belgium, Italy, Germany and France) there has been no such a comprehensive data available for Sweden and most other European countries. The main motivation of this paper is therefore to obtain a systematic database on university patenting activities in Sweden. The main method of this research is data-matching between the EPO-patents and Lund University Faculty registers, and manual controls. The methodology of this research underlines the importance of searching for university-patents by the name of university inventors rather their affiliated university. The rate of patenting activity showed a positive trend between the years 1990 and 2004. 458 patents have been filed by Lund University researchers. The total number of inventors is 250. Although the number of large firms is lesser than the SMEs, the former group (e.g. Ericsson, Astra-Zeneca) has applied for a larger number of patents than the total number of patents of SMEs. |
| Keywords: | university patents; technology transfer; innovation; Swedish Model |
| JEL: | O3 O38 O34 |
| Date: | 2006–01–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:1628&r=ipr |
| By: | Frey, Rainer; Hussinger, Katrin |
| Abstract: | Technological change is often hypothesized as one of the main drivers of merger activities. This paper analyzes the role of technology in mergers and acquisitions (M&As) at the firm level. Based on a newly created data set that combines financial information and patent data for public limited companies in Europe as well as country level variables, we apply a structural model to investigate technology-related motivations behind merger formation. Distinguishing between cross-border and domestic M&As, we find that technological relatedness of the M&A partners reduces uncertainty and the expected risk of failure associated with cross-border acquisitions significantly, whereas there is no evidence for technological complementarities driving domestic M&As. The relevance of technology for crossborder M&As further illustrates the international character of technology markets. |
| Keywords: | domestic versus cross-border M&As, technological relatedness, market relatedness |
| JEL: | C25 G34 O32 O34 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:bubdp1:5194&r=ipr |
| By: | Gustavo Crespi (SPRU, University of Sussex and University of Chile); Aldo Geuna (SPRU, University of Sussex); Bart Verspagen (Eindhoven University of Technology and TIK) |
| Keywords: | university patenting, public-private technology transfer, european universities |
| JEL: | O3 I28 |
| Date: | 2007–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sru:ssewps:154&r=ipr |
| By: | James R. Markusen; Natalia Trofimenko |
| Abstract: | Gains from productivity and knowledge transmission arising from the presence of foreign firms have received a good deal of empirical attention, but theoretical micro-foundations for this mechanism are limited. Here we develop a dynamic model in which foreign experts may train domestic workers who work with them. Gains from training can in turn be decomposed into two types: (a) obtaining knowledge and skills at a lower cost than if they were self-learnt at home, (b) producing domestic skilled workers earlier in time than if the domestic economy had to rediscover the relevant knowledge through "reinventing the wheel." We use fixed effects and nearest neighbour matching estimators on a panel of plant-level data for Colombia that identifies the use of foreign experts, to show that these experts have substantial, although not always immediate, positive effects on the wages of domestic workers and on the value added per worker. |
| JEL: | F2 O19 O47 |
| Date: | 2007–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12872&r=ipr |
| By: | Andy Stirling (SPRU, University of Sussex) |
| Keywords: | Diversity, Science and Technology, Society |
| JEL: | O30 |
| Date: | 2007–02–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sru:ssewps:156&r=ipr |
| By: | Diego Comin; Bart Hobijn |
| Abstract: | We introduce a tractable model of endogenous growth in which the returns to innovation are determined by the technology adoption decisions of the users of new technologies. Technology adoption involves an implementation investment that determines the initial productivity of a new technology. After implementation, learning increases the productivity of a technology to its full potential. In this framework, implementation enhances growth, while growth increases obsolescence and reduces implementation. In a calibrated version of our model, the optimal policy involves a subsidy to capital and to implementation and a R&D tax. This policy would lead to a welfare improvement of 7.6 percent. Out of steady-state analysis yields that the transitional dynamics of the detrended variables after a shock to capital are very similar to the dynamics of the neoclassical growth model, but transitory shocks have permanent effects on the level of productivity. |
| JEL: | O0 O3 |
| Date: | 2007–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12886&r=ipr |
| By: | Moscoso Boedo, Hernan |
| Abstract: | Skill intensive technologies seem to be adopted by rich countries rather than poor ones. Related to that observation, the ratio of wages of skilled to unskilled workers - the skill premium - shows two important features over time and across countries. In the US the skill premium decreased during the first half of the 20th century and it increased after 1950, evolving according to a U shaped pattern. On the other hand, the same measure across countries around 1990 is hump shaped when countries are ordered by GDP per worker. By modeling the decisions for factor accumulation and technology adoption, this paper gives a systematic explanation as to why we see ever more skill intensive technologies being adopted both over time in the US and across countries. The model developed here endogenously generates predictions for the skill premium that are consistent with both the US and international observations under the same set of parameter values. |
| Keywords: | Technology adoption; growth |
| JEL: | O33 |
| Date: | 2006–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:1644&r=ipr |
| By: | Francesco Rullani (LEM - Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy and IVS – Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark.) |
| Abstract: | The paper presents a dynamic perspective on the landscape of Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) developers’ motivations and tries to isolate mechanisms sustaining developers’ contribution over time. The first part of the paper uses data gathered by the empirical studies relative to the FLOSS case to judge the relative importance of each group of incentives detected by the literature. In the second part of the paper, the same data are used to further characterize developers’ motivations in dynamics terms, showing how the relative importance of different incentives changes over time. Drawing inspiration from these results, the third part of the paper identifies a specific mechanism fostering developers’ contribution to the community activities, namely that: “Independently of developers’ exogenous preferences, the more their exposure to the FLOSS community social environment, the more their contribution to the community activities”. The key point of this hypothesis is that, if the exposure to the FLOSS community social environment is able to foster developers’ contribution beyond the level granted by their predetermined preferences, this leads directly to the evidence that the FLOSS community is provided with a mechanism sustaining and enhancing developers’ incentives to produce and diffuse code. In the last part of the paper, data relative to 14,497 developers working on SourceForge.net during two years (2001-2002) are employed to estimate a model testing the aforementioned hypothesis. Endogeneity problems are explicitly accounted for, and robustness checks are performed in order to make sure that the observed confirmation of the hypothesis is actually an empirically grounded result. |
| Keywords: | Free/Libre/Open Source Software, incentives to innovate, dynamics of motivations, cooperation, community. |
| JEL: | O31 L86 |
| Date: | 2006–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cri:cespri:wp190&r=ipr |