We study the functional specialization whereby some countries contribute relatively more inventors vs. organizations in the production of inventions at a global scale. We propose a conceptual framework to explain this type of functional specialization, which posits the presence of feedbacks...

New methods of analysis of patent statistics allow assessing country profiles of technological specialization for the period 1990-2006. We witness a modest decrease in levels of specialization, which we show to be negatively influenced by country size and degree of internationalization of...

Inventors and organizational assets are inputs of inventive activities which are often provided at a global scale, where countries might specialize in the provision of one or the other type of inputs. We introduce a new patent-based metric, the “inventor balance”, to quantify this type of...