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on Intellectual Property Rights |
| By: | Bergeaud, Antonin; Nur Gozen, Ruveyda; Van Reenen, John |
| Abstract: | We introduce a methodology to measure cross-country trends in innovation capability- “technological trajectories†and implement this on a new rich dataset covering patents between 1836 and 2016 across multiple countries. Intuitively, trajectories are revealed by a country’s sustained increases in patenting across multiple patent offices. We first describe the data patterns, showing the relative decline of the UK, and the rise first of the US and Germany, and then later of Japan and China. We then econometrically estimate trajectories on (i) the post-1902 period for France, Germany, Japan, the UK and US, and (ii) the post-1960 period for a wider sample of 40 countries. Our trajectories are strongly positively correlated with Total Factor Productivity growth, and also (but less strongly) associated with the growth of labour productivity and capital intensity. We show that future trajectories are predicted by a country’s initial levels of R&D, education and defence spending, classic drivers of innovation in modern growth theory. |
| Keywords: | Patents; Technical progress; Economic history; Innovation |
| JEL: | O31 O33 O34 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:21066 |
| By: | Armstrong, Mark; Vickers, John |
| Abstract: | We study a market in which firms each might supply a number of variants, or "brands", of fundamentally the same product. Consumers differ in the sets of brands they consider, and firms compete using (multi-dimensional) mixed pricing strategies. We show when firms apply uniform pricing across their brands, and when they use segmented pricing so that one "discount" brand is priced below another "premium" brand. We study the case of symmetric brands in particular, and discuss the impact of a firm introducing a new brand, of imposing a requirement to set uniform prices across brands, and of mergers between firms. |
| Keywords: | Price dispersion |
| JEL: | C72 D43 D83 L13 M31 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:20973 |
| By: | Sergio Petralia; Ron Boschma |
| Abstract: | The patent system rests on a fundamental bargain: temporary monopoly rights in exchange for the disclosure of technical knowledge. Yet, the complexity of transferring technical know-how often limits the effectiveness of disclosure, keeping innovation highly localized. We study whether actionable disclosure in the form of publicly available executable code can overcome these frictions. We rely on a novel dataset linking two decades of patenting activity in the United States to contributions in public code repositories by 1, 556 organizations. Using neural language models, we measure the semantic similarity between patent descriptions and public code contributions by these firms to identify patents with high digital disclosure. We find that these patents attract citations from inventors located approximately 17% farther away than those citing a group of control patents, suggesting that actionable disclosure in the form of executable code reduces spatial barriers to knowledge diffusion. |
| Keywords: | patent disclosure, knowledge diffusion, open-source software, geography of innovation, spatial spillovers |
| JEL: | O31 O33 O34 R12 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:2611 |
| By: | Feyler, Emilie; Heim, Sven; Szücs, Florian; Spiegel, Yossi |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of horizontal minority stake acquisitions on firms’ innovation incentives and patenting behavior. Using patent data from 34 countries between 2001 and 2019, we employ a staggered, matching-based difference-in-differences approach, complemented by an event study. We find that such acquisitions lead to a decline in both the number of patents granted and the number of citations received, indicating a reduction in innovation activity. These results suggest that horizontal minority acquisitions can serve as a mechanism to soften rivalry, not only in product markets, but also in innovation. |
| Keywords: | Innovation; Merger policy; Patents; Minority shareholdings |
| JEL: | D22 G14 L13 L40 O31 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:20917 |