We study the problem of an inventor who brings to the market an innovation that can be legally imitated. Imitators may “enter” the market by imitating the innovation at a cost or by buying from the inventor the knowledge necessary to reproduce and use the invention. The possibility of...

Exclusive patents sacrifice product competition to provide firms incentives to innovate. We characterize an alternative mechanism whereby later inventors are allowed to share the patent if they discover within a certain time period of the first inventor. These runner-up patents increase social...

This paper examines the determinants of emission credit allocations under the Regional Clean Air Incentives Market (RECLAIM) —a program aimed at reducing nitrogen oxides (NOX) and sulfur oxides (SOX) – in the greater Los Angeles area. Our results suggest that deviations in the allocation of...