This paper explores the characteristics of 238 patents on 94 “inventions” contributed by major multinational innovators to the “Eco-Patent Commons”, which provides royalty-free access to third parties to patented climate change related innovations. By comparing the pledged patents to...

Global climate mitigation will require the development and diffusion of a large number and variety of new technologies.  How will patent protection affect this process?  In this paper we first review the evidence on the role of patents for innovation and international technology transfer in...

A surprisingly small number of innovative firms use the patent system. In the UK, the share of firms patenting among those reporting that they have innovated is about 4%. Survey data from the same firms support the idea that they do not consider patents or other forms of registered IP as...

This paper explores the characteristics of 238 patents on 90 inventions contributed by major multinational innovators to the “Eco-Patent Commons”, which provides royalty-free access to third parties to patented innovations on green technologies. We compare the pledged patents to other...

This paper explores the phenomenon of “trademark squatting” – a situation in which someone other than the original brand owner obtains a trademark on a brand. We develop a model that shows how squatting results from market uncertainty that leads brand owners to rationally forgo registering...

This paper analyses characteristics and determinants of the recent explosion of patent filings by Chinese firms both in China and the United States.  We construct a firm-level dataset by matching USPTO and SIPO patents to Chinese manufacturing census data for the period 1999-2006.  Using this...

We evaluate the impact of firm-specific export subsidies on exports in Colombia.  Using a two-stage selection correction procedure, we obtain firm-specific predicted subsidy amounts that can be explained by the characteristics that determine the firms' eligibility for government support and its...

This paper identifies the effect of neighborhood peer groups on childhood skill acquisitions using observational data.  We incorporate spatial peer interaction, defined as a child's nearest geographical neighbors, into a prodiction function of child cognitive development in Andhra Pradesh,...