Hollywood converted to sound in three years. In comparison, Hollywood's conversion to color required more than three decades, and included a three-year period in which the share of color movies declined from 58 to 31 percent. We investigate this puzzling adoption profile using detailed data on...

This article examines patterns of entry and exit in a relatively homogeneous product market to investigate the impact of entry on incumbent firms and market structure. In particular, we are interested in whether the organizational form of entrants matters for the competitive decisions of...

The candor of patent applicants is an important determinant of patent quality. This paper investigates whether patent applicants strategically withhold citations to material quot;prior art.quot; Citation data suggest that applicants withhold between 21 and 32 percent of relevant citations....

This paper examines how outside and inside competition affect the number and composition of product offerings. The question is addressed using the example of the U.S. motion picture industry, which has experienced declining attendance in the past decade due to outside competition from streaming...

This article examines patterns of entry and exit in a relatively homogeneous product market to investigate the impact of entry on incumbent firms and market structure. In particular, we are interested in whether the organizational form of entrants matters for the competitive decisions of...

This paper investigates whether patent applicants strategically withhold citations to material prior art. Citation data suggest that applicants withhold between 21% and 33% of relevant citations. Variation in withholdings is explained by patent portfolio size and indicators of patent value....

A socially optimal structure of application and renewal fees for patents would encourage the maximal number of applications while reducing effective patent length. We find, however, that when patent offices are required to be self-funding, resource constraints can distort this fee structure....