Based on a survey of the inventors of 9,017 European patented inventions, this paper provides new information about the characteristics of European inventors, the sources of their knowledge, the importance of formal and informal collaborations, the motivations to invent, and the actual use and...

We investigate whether patents that are jointly held by legally independent companies help sustain product-market collusion. We use a simple model of repeated interactions to show that joint patents can serve collusive purposes. Our model generates two testable predictions: when joint patents...

We present a class of dynamic general-equilibrium models of education, innovation and technology transfer to explain the evolution of industries and aggregate growth in closed and open economies. Firms employ educated workers in order to develop higher-quality products. The realization of...

In this paper, we study the effect of invention disclosure through patent publication on the market for ideas. We do so by analyzing the effects of the American Inventor’s Protection Act of 1999 (AIPA) — which required US patent applications to be published 18 months after their filing date...

This article analyzes the effects of intellectual property rights in a qualityladder model in which incumbent firms preemptively innovate in order to keep their position of leadership. Unlike in models with leapfrogging, granting nonexpiring forward protection reduces the rate of innovation and...

Prior to the Copenhagen meeting on developing a new framework for climate-change policy there were sharp differences between the positions of developed and developing countries regarding the role of intellectual property rights (IPRs) in fostering international technology transfer (ITT)....

This paper presents preliminary evidence on the patenting activities of 21 200 research institutions - 20 091 higher education institutions (HEIs) and 1 109 public research institutes (PRIs) - for 36 OECD countries and China from 1992 to 2014. Our evidence, which builds on a database that...

This paper investigates how digital technologies have shaped the concentration of inventive activity in cities across 30 OECD countries. It finds that patenting is highly concentrated: from 2010 to 2014, 10% of cities accounted for 64% of patent applications to the European Patent Office, with...

This paper discusses how to improve Canada’s business innovation in order to boost labour productivity and output growth. Many general framework conditions are highly favourable to business risk-taking and innovation, including macro stability, openness, strong human capital, low corporate tax...

With sound framework conditions, fine universities, good infrastructure and policies friendly towards foreign direct investment, Ireland scores high in international innovation scoreboards. Overall, policies to boost innovation and entrepreneurship are on the right track, but investment in...