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on Intellectual Property Rights |
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Issue of 2016‒12‒04
five papers chosen by Giovanni Ramello Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale “Amedeo Avogadro” |
| By: | Bronnenberg, Bart; Dube, Jean-Pierre |
| Abstract: | Brands and brand capital have long been theorized to play an important role in the formation of the industrial market structure of consumer goods industries. We summarize several striking empirical regularities in the concentration, magnitude and persistence of brand market shares in consumer goods categories. We then survey the theoretical and empirical literatures on the formation of brand preferences and how brand preferences contribute to our understanding of these empirical regularities. We also review the literature on how brand capital creates strategic advantages to firms that own established brands. |
| JEL: | L11 L15 M31 M37 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11648&r=ipr |
| By: | Alberto Galasso; Mark Schankerman |
| Abstract: | Cumulative innovation is central to economic growth. Do patent rights facilitate or impede follow-on innovation? We study the causal effect of removing patent rights by court invalidation on subsequent research related to the focal patent, as measured by later citations. We exploit random allocation of judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to control for endogeneity of patent invalidation. Patent invalidation leads to a 50 percent increase in citations to the focal patent, on average, but the impact is heterogeneous and depends on characteristics of the bargaining environment. Patent rights block downstream innovation in computers, electronics and medical instruments, but not in drugs, chemicals or mechanical technologies. Moreover, the effect is entirely driven by invalidation of patents owned by large patentees that triggers more follow-on innovation by small firms. |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:61614&r=ipr |
| By: | Akcigit, Ufuk; Kerr, William R. |
| Abstract: | We build a tractable growth model where multi-product incumbents invest in internal innovations to improve their existing products, while new entrants and incumbents invest in external innovations to acquire new product lines. External and internal innovations generate heterogeneous innovation qualities, and firm size affects innovation incentives. This framework allows us to analyze how different types of innovation contribute to economic growth and how the firm size distribution can have important consequences for the types of innovations realized. Our model aligns with many observed empirical regularities, and we quantify our framework by matching Census Bureau operating data with patent data for U.S. firms. We observe that internal innovation scales moderately faster with firm size than external innovation. |
| Keywords: | Citations; Endogenous Growth; Entrepreneurs.; External; innovation; Internal; patents; Research and Development; Scientists |
| JEL: | L16 O31 O33 O41 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11660&r=ipr |
| By: | Autor, David; Dorn, David; Hanson, Gordon; Pisano, Gary; Shu, Pian |
| Abstract: | Manufacturing is the locus of U.S. innovation, accounting for more than three quarters of U.S. corporate patents. The rise of import competition from China has represented a major competitive shock to the sector, which in theory could benefit or stifle innovation. In this paper we empirically examine how rising import competition from China has affected U.S. innovation. We confront two empirical challenges in assessing the impact. We map all U.S. utility patents granted by March 2013 to firm-level data using a novel internet-based matching algorithm that corrects for a preponderance of false negatives when using firm names alone. And we contend with the fact that patenting is highly concentrated in certain product categories and that this concentration has been shifting over time. Accounting for secular trends in innovative activities, we find that the impact of the change in import exposure on the change in patents produced is strongly negative. It remains so once we add an extensive set of further industry- and firm-level controls. Rising import exposure also reduces global employment, global sales, and global R&D expenditure at the firm level. It would appear that a simple mechanism in which greater foreign competition induces U.S. manufacturing firms to contract their operations along multiple margins of activity goes a long way toward explaining the response of U.S. innovation to the China trade shock. |
| Keywords: | China; firms; import competition; innovation; patents; Trade |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11664&r=ipr |
| By: | Shang-Jin Wei; Zhuan Xie; Xiaobo Zhang |
| Abstract: | After more than three decades of high growth that was based on an exploration of its low-wage advantage and a relatively favorable demographic pattern in combination with market-oriented reforms and openness to the world economy, China is at a crossroad with a much higher wage and a shrinking work force. Future growth by necessity would have to depend more on its ability to generate productivity increase, and domestic innovation will be an important part of it. In this paper, we assess the likelihood that China can make the necessary transition. Using data on expenditure on research and development, and patent applications, receipts, and citations, we show that the Chinese economy has become increasingly innovative. In terms of drivers of innovation growth, we find that embracing expanded market opportunities in the world economy and responding to rising labor costs are two leading contributing factors. On the other hand, we find evidence of resource misallocation in the innovation area: while state-owned firms receive more subsidies, private firms exhibit more innovation results. Innovation can presumably progress even faster if resource misallocation can be tackled. |
| JEL: | O1 O3 O4 O53 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22854&r=ipr |