Internal Finance and Patents - evidence from firm-level data

We find that internal finance resources at the firm-level, measured by cash flow, play a non-trivial role for the number of patent applications, even after controlling for the standard variables of a patent study. The results are based on estimating panel count-data models on a sample of 2,700 Swedish manufacturing firms, with observations from the period 1997-2005. The cash-flow effect is larger during the aftermath of the bursting IT-bubble and for firms that are more likely to be financially constrained. Our results suggest that some firms reduce or stop applying for patents during periods of declining economic activity.