The optimal patent breadth and length is derived for an innovating and a non-innovating country in the presence of imitation. It is found that the innovating country chooses stronger patent protection than the non-innovating country. These patents are compared to the optimal global patent design...

Patentability of basic research together with complementarity between basic research and commercialization development leads to the problem called "anti-commons" where assigning exclusive rights of a resource to more than one entity reduces usage of the resource. Transition from (not-for-profit)...

It has long been recognized that worker wages and possibly productivity are higher in large firms. Moreover, at least since Schumpeter (1942) economists have been interested in the relative efficiency of large firms in the research and development enterprise. This paper uses longitudinal...

This paper examines the firm level determinants of the incidence of cross-licensing. It develops a simple stochastic theory explaining such incidence, and confirms its implications based on new dataset of licensing contracts by Japanese firms. Among major findings are: (1) Licensing probability...

We develop and test a model of the patenting and R&D decisions of an innovating firm whose scientist-employees sometime quit to join or start a rival. In our model, the innovating firm patents to protect itself from its employees. We show theoretically that the risk of a scientist's departure...

We examine patent pools in the context of a consortium standard. Although such pools of complementary technologies are approved by antitrust authorities, the actual implementation has proved to be problematic. We identify two possible obstacles: free riding and bargaining failure. We also...

We consider a two-sided, finite-horizon search and matching model with heterogeneous types and complementarity between types. The quality of the pool of potential partners deteriorates as agents who have found mutually agreeable matches exit the market. When search is costless and all agents...

This paper presents a micro-model of knowledge creation and transfer in a small group of people. It is intended to contribute eventually to the development of microfoundations for aggregate models of knowledge externalities used in various literatures, such as those pertaining to endogenous...

We introduce and solve a new class of static portfolio choice problems, where only the best realized alternative matters. A decision maker must simultaneously choose among independent ranked options, and the better alternatives have a lower chance of panning out. Each choice is costly, and just...

In this paper we experimentally investigate decentralized, organizational learning. The main objective is to understand how learning members of an organization cope with the confounding effects of the simultaneous learning of others. We use versions of a simple "success-or-failure" game due to...