The number of patent applications and "bad" patents issued has been rising rapidly in recent years. Based on this trend, we study the overload problem within the Patent Office and its consequences on the firms' R&D incentives. We assume that the examination process of patent applications is...

This paper proposes a Bayesian approach to estimate a factor augmented productivity equation. We exploit the panel dimension of our data and distinguish individual-specic and time-specic factors. On the basis of 14 technology and infrastructure indicators from 37 countries over a 10-year...