To examine the drivers of innovation, this paper studies the global R&D effort to fight the deadliest diseases and presents four results. We find: (1) global pharmaceutical R&D activity - measured by clinical trials - typically follows the 'law of diminishing efforts': i.e. the elasticity of R&D...

Teamwork in research has been on the rise and so has the size of R&D teams. This paper offers an explanation for increasing team size that we call the "racing against time" hypothesis: With innovation races more competitive globally, R&D firms need to finish research projects as quickly as...

If redistribution is distortionary, and if the income of skilled workers is due to knowledgeintensive activities and depends positively on intellectual property, a social planner which cares about income distribution may in principle want to use a reduction in Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs)...

Manufacturing accounts for more than three-quarters of U.S. corporate patents. The competitive shock to this sector emanating from China's economic ascent could in theory either augment or stifle U.S. innovation. Using three decades of U.S. patents matched to corporate owners, we quantify how...

We study the evolution of patenting in China from 1985-2019. We use a Large Language Model to measure patent importance based on patent abstracts and classify patent ownership using a comprehensive business registry. We highlight four insights. First, average patent importance declined from...

We study the effects of a change in the way patient reimbursements are calculated on the prices of pharmaceuticals using quasi-experimental data for Denmark which switched from external (where reimbursements are based on prices of similar products in foreign countries) to internal reference...

This paper analyzes whether part-time employment is beneficial for firm productivity in the service sector. Using a unique dataset on the Dutch pharmacy sector that includes the work hours of all employees and a "hard" physical measure of firm productivity, we estimate a production function...

What makes prescription drugs cost so much? The media and Congress say it is corporate greed, while pharmaceutical firms blame federal regulations and an expensive drug development process. This study focuses on R & D (R&D) expenditures at global pharmaceutical firms and explores the driving...