This paper is an attempt to quantify key aspects of innovations, 'basicness' and appropriability, and explore the linkages between them. We rely on detailed patent data. particularly on patent citations, thus awarding the proposed measures a very wide coverage. Relying on the prior that...

We decompose the recent patent increase into components representing (1) an increase in resources made available to research and development, (2) an across-the-board rise in the patent yield of an R&D dollar, and (3) changes in the patent yield in individual industries. Two high tech fields,...

In the 1990s, patenting schemes changed in many respects: Upcoming new technologies accelerated the shift from price competition towards competition based on technical inventions, a worldwide surge in patenting took place, and the 'patent thicket' arose as a consequence of strategic patenting....

In this paper, it is argued that investments in information and communication technologies (ICT) are closely linked to complementary innovations and are most productive in firms with experience from earlier innovations. In the empirical analysis based on firm-level panel data covering the period...

This introductory essay to the special edition explores the changing role of intellectual property rights (IPRs), and the implications of these changes for firm strategy and industrial policy. Four recent, interrelated trends are important in this regard: (1) the growing prominence of intangible...

A technology index based on R&D, skilled labour and capital vintage was developed and used to characterise industrial firms by technology level, facilitating the analysis of relationships between technology and economic performance at the firm level. The results show that technology-intensive...