change and innovation has radically changed the living standards of the citizens of the US in the past 150 years. Lying … the presence of post offices in a county, on innovation. We show that between 1804 and 1899, the time when the US became …

This paper studies a simple model of experimentation and innovation. Our analysis suggests that patents may improve the … allocation of resources by encouraging rapid experimentation and efficient ex post transfer of knowledge across firms. Each firm … project to implement. A successful innovation can be copied by other firms. Symmetric equilibria (where actions do not depend …