We investigate the speed at which clusters of invention for a technology migrate spatially following breakthrough inventions. We identify breakthrough inventions as the top one percent of US inventions for a technology during 1975-1984 in terms of subsequent citations. Patenting growth is...

This chapter reviews the growing literature on the “market for technology,” a broad term that denotes trade in technology disembodied from physical goods. The market for technology flourished during the nineteenth century in the United States. After several decades of relative decline, the...

This paper explores offshoring of firms’ research and development functions. Our analysis employs a previously untapped and unique Eurostat International Sourcing Survey. The results are easy to summarize. First, the magnitude of R&D offshoring is small. Second, a large majority of R&D is...

This paper offers an extensive survey and a critical discussion of the empirical literature on the driving factors of R&D. These factors are subsumed under five broad types. The paper first summarises the key predictions from theory regarding each type's R&D effect. It then examines for which...

We investigate whether appointing a middle management level affects startups' innovation performance. Additional hierarchical levels are often suspected to restrict innovative activities. However, founders' capacities for information processing and resource allocation are usually strongly...

Academic researchers face mobility related decisions throughout their careers. We study the importance of team and organisational characteristics of the home departments for career choices of departing researchers in the fields of science and engineering at higher education institutions in...

The US innovation system has many strengths, including world class research universities and firms that thrive in innovation-intensive sectors. However, fissures have begun to appear, notably in the areas of human capital development, the patent system and manufacturing activity, while public...

Do legal institutions governing financial contracts affect the nature of real investments in the economy? We develop a simple model and provide evidence that the answer to this question is yes. We consider a levered firm's choice of investment between innovative and conservative technologies, on...