|
on Intellectual Property Rights |
| By: | Caoui, El Hadi; Galasso, Alberto |
| Abstract: | Creative content is often the product of collaboration, which may lead to fractional ownership of intellectual property. We study the effect of fractional ownership on the licensing of copyrighted material and its use in follow-on works. To do so, we compile new data on the copyright ownership structure of songs and their licensing for use in movies. We document that fractional song ownership has increased substantially: the mean number of songwriters and publishers per song has tripled between 1958 and 2021. We show that, conditional on a rich set of controls, greater fractionalization is associated with lower likelihood of licensing. We leverage the Sony-led acquisition of EMI Music Publishing in 2012 to obtain within-song variation in ownership and find that consolidating ownership rights significantly increases licensing, beyond any standalone effects of the merger. |
| JEL: | O34 L82 D45 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19686 |
| By: | Harhoff, Dietmar; Heller, David; Momtaz, Paul |
| Abstract: | We show that firm and industry, rather than inventor and invention factors, explain more than half of the variation in inventor returns in administrative employer-inventor-patent-linked data from Germany. Between-firm variation in inventive rents is strongly associated with inventor mobility. Inventors are more likely to make a move just before a patent is filed than shortly thereafter and benefit from their move through a mobility-related marginal inventor return. Employers that pay inventor returns in excess of the expected return gain a favorable position in the market for inventive labor with subsequent increases in patent quality and quantity. Consistent with theoretical arguments, effect sizes also depend on employer-inventor technological complementarity, degree of competition, and invention quality. |
| JEL: | O31 J24 J62 |
| Date: | 2024–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19681 |
| By: | Seula Kim; Karam Jo |
| Abstract: | In this memo, we construct a patent assignee-firm longitudinal bridge between U.S. patent assignees and firms using firm-level administrative data from the U.S. Census Bureau with web search results. We match granted patents applied between 1976 and 2016 to the U.S. firms recorded in the Longitudinal Business Database (LBD) in the Census Bureau. Building on existing algorithms in the literature, we first use the assignee name, address (state and city), and year information to link the two datasets. We then introduce a novel search-aided algorithm. Overall, we are able to match 88.2% and 80.1% of all U.S. patents and assignees respectively. In particular, the search-aided algorithm significantly improves the matching results by accounting for 7% and 2.9% of matches at the patent and assignee level, respectively. We also find that the match rates accounted for by the search-aided algorithm have substantially increased over time, which highlights its importance in more recent periods. We contribute to the existing literature by 1) improving the match rates and quality with the web search-aided algorithm, and 2) providing the longest and longitudinally consistent crosswalk between patent assignees and LBD firms. (All results reported in the abstract were cleared for release under CBDRB-FY22-P2095-R9872). |
| Keywords: | SSEL, LBD, USPTO PatentsView |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:tnotes:26-17 |
| By: | Carvalho, V. M.; Freund, L. B. |
| Abstract: | We develop a theory of growth in which firms forage in idea space. A firm exploits a patch of related ideas, gradually exhausting opportunities for quality improvement, and then searches for a new patch. We cast this explore-exploit tradeoff as a tractable optimal-stopping problem and embed it in an endogenous-growth model. The composition of innovation—improving existing ideas versus discovering new ground—emerges as an equilibrium object. To construct an empirical representation of the idea space, we apply natural language processing to patent text data. The data support the theory’s central premises: returns to local exploitation diminish; firms stay longer on richer patches; and entry into new patches yields more and better patents. We calibrate the model to U.S. data and establish two results, on the composition of growth and on its pace. First, at a twenty-year horizon, patenting in new clusters accounts for over half of growth from quality improvements: sustained growth rests on firms continually entering new territory. Second, the model sign-identifies the origins of the productivity slowdown of the last four decades: exploitation spells have not shortened, weighing against worsening exploitation and tentatively pointing to harder exploration. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, Growth, Firm Dynamics, Foraging, Exploration and Exploitation, Patents, Natural Language Processing, Artificial Intelligence |
| JEL: | O31 O41 O33 O40 O47 |
| Date: | 2026–06–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:2659 |
| By: | Seo, Gangcheol; Paudel, Krishna P.; Nelson, Kelly |
| Abstract: | This study examines long-run convergence in U.S. state-level agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) and investigates the role of patent-based technological knowledge in explaining persistent productivity differences across states. Using annual agricultural TFP data for 48 contiguous U.S. states from 1960 to 2015, we assess convergence dynamics through σ-convergence tests and the club convergence approach proposed by Phillips and Sul (2007). We then use a two-way fixed effects (TWFE) panel framework to examine whether patent-based knowledge stocks are associated with state-level agricultural TFP. Patent stocks are constructed for six agricultural technology subsectors under alternative assumptions regarding knowledge depreciation and lag structures. The results indicate that U.S. agricultural TFP does not converge toward a common steady state but instead exhibits multiple convergence clubs, suggesting persistent heterogeneity in long-run productivity paths across states. Patent-based knowledge accumulation also displays substantial sectoral heterogeneity. Plants, research tools, animal health, and machinery patent stocks are positively associated with agricultural TFP across most specifications, whereas fertilizer-related patent stocks are negatively associated. These patterns remain broadly robust across alternative constructions of the patent stock. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of technological heterogeneity in long-run agricultural productivity and suggest that accumulated patent-based technological knowledge is associated with agricultural productivity in distinct ways across innovation sectors. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404391 |