A surprisingly small number of innovative firms use the patent system. In the UK, the share of firms patenting among those reporting that they have innovated is about 4%. Survey data from the same firms support the idea that they do not consider patents or other forms of registered IP as...

We survey the economic literature, both theoretical and empirical, on the choice of intellectual property protection by firms. Our focus is on the tradeoffs between using patents and disclosing versus the use of secrecy, although we also look briefly at the use of other means of formal...

A surprisingly small number of innovative firms use the patent system. In the UK, the share of firms patenting among those reporting that they have innovated is about 4%. Survey data from the same firms support the idea that they do not consider patents or other forms of registered IP as...

We use an extended version of the well-established Crepon, Duguet and Mairesse model (1998) to model the relationship between appropriability mechanisms, innovation and firm-level productivity. We enrich this model in several ways. First, we consider different types of innovation spending and...

One of the most puzzling findings in the empirical analysis of firms’ patenting behaviour is the low proportion of patenting firms in the population of registered companies. Also, there is evidence suggesting that firms may not patent all patentable inventions and that this behaviour differs...

We survey the economic literature, both theoretical and empirical, on the choice of intellectual property protection by firms. Our focus is on the tradeoffs between using patents and disclosing versus the use of secrecy, although we also look briefly at the use of other means of formal...

Recent research on financial market valuation of the knowledge assets of publicly traded firms is surveyed. The motivation for using a market value equation to price knowledge assets is discussed and the theory behind this equation is briefly presented. Then the empirical literature that relates...

The elasticity of investment and R&D investment with respect to cash flow is unambiguously positive in a large panel of U.S. manufacturing firms from 1973 to 1987. even with proper controls for permanent differences across firms and for simultaneity. I argue that the evidence favors liquidity...