Given the expected fundamental reform of Article 35 of the Japanese patent law, which has been governing the transfer of ownership of employee inventions to firms, the freedom of designing the incentive system for inventors would increase significantly. In order to provide basic guiding...

We conducted an inventor survey to examine the contribution of science to corporate inventions. The survey results show that for about one-quarter of the inventions, scientific knowledge embodied in literature, equipment, or research materials in the last 15 years was essential to conceive or...

The RIETI inventor survey, which was conducted in 2007, invited inventors to contribute their views and opinions on the constraints on the R&D performance of their organizations, and the policies and managerial agenda for improving it. A total of 1,300 inventors (around one quarter of those who...

This report presents an overview of the results of an inventor survey, focusing on Japanese inventions for which priority claims were filed during the period 2003 to 2005 with both the Japan Patent Office (JPO) and the European Patent Office (EPO). This survey, conducted as a part of an...

This paper analyzes what types of R&D projects and R&D firms generate important spillover effects, and which are subject to funding constraints. It also analyzes what types of projects and firms are targeted for public support and whether the selection of targets is consistent with spillovers....

Effective research and development (R&D) at companies and universities and the efficient commercialization of their results are considered vital to the future growth of the Japanese economy. However, social scientific knowledge on the objectives and motives of R&D, knowledge sources for...

This paper empirically examines the impact of board diversity on firms' innovative activity, taking advantage of the unique firm-level dataset in the period 2000-2011 in Japan. We constructed measurements of the degree of board diversity by using various characteristics of board members such as...

Studies on the globalization of firm activities have been progressing rapidly, but empirical studies on service trade using firm level data have been scarce. This paper, using panel data for Japanese firms, analyzes the relationship between service trade and firm characteristics such as...

We investigate the parts transactions between finished auto manufacturers and first tier parts suppliers in Japan from 1989 to 2010. Our main results are as follows:- The density of transaction networks has grown throughout the investigated period. In the 2000s, it was due mainly to suppliers...

Market openness improves the efficiency of business operations through various channels, and firms' usage of imported intermediate goods is one of such conduits. This paper empirically examines the effects of import of intermediates on Japanese manufacturers' productivity and profitability by...