The long-run evolution of per-capita income exhibits a structural breakoften associated with the Industrial Revolution. We follow Mokyr (2002) and embedthe idea that this structural break reflects a regime switch in the evolution of technologicalknowledge into a dynamic framework, using Airy...

We provide the first measurement of knowledge spillovers from venture capital-financed companies onto the patenting activities of other companies. On average, these spillovers are nine times larger than those generated by the R&D investment of established companies. Spillover effects are larger...

We investigate the causal effect of patent rights on cumulative innovation, using large-scale data that approximate the patent universe in its technological and economic variety. We introduce a novel instrumental variable for patent invalidation that exploits personnel scarcity in post-grant...

We study the blocking effect of patents on follow-on innovation by others. We posit that follow-on innovation requires freedom to operate (FTO), which firms typically obtain through a license from the patentee holding the original innovation. Where licensing fails, follow-on innovation is...

This paper seeks to understand the intriguing but only sparsely explored phenomenon of “leisure time invention,” where the main underlying idea for the new product or process occurs when the inventor is away from the workplace. We add to previous research by focussing on the inventive...

Pharmaceutical firms typically enjoy market exclusivity for new drugs from concurrent protection of the underlying invention (through patents) and the clinical trials data submitted for market approval (through data exclusivity). Patent invalidation during drug development renders data...

The increasing commercialization of university discoveries has initiated acontroversy on the impacts for future scientific research. It has been argued that anincreasing orientation towards commercialization may have a negative impact onmore fundamental research efforts in science. Several...

In this paper we analyse the decision of firms in the Canadian manufacturing sectorto co-operate on innovation projects. Our focus is on the motives behind this decisionand the firm characteristics, both general and with respect to innovation activities,which influence the motives for innovation...

This study focuses on the early stages of international innovation activities, i.e. theorganizational processes through which promising ideas from around the globe are collectedand evaluated. We ask: What characteristics make foreign knowledge interesting to domesticR&D managers? We envision...

One critical aspect of economic development is that productivity growth and a rising standard of living are realized through more roundabout methods of production and increasing specialization of intermediate inputs and producer services. We use an extended version of the Judd-Grossman-Helpman...