I study how patents affect firm success (initial public offering or acquisition at a high price) in a sample of 2,191 U.S. startups applying for patent protection in the 24 months following their first round of venture capital funding. I observe both successful and unsuccessful patent...

I study how patents affect firm success (initial public offering or acquisition at a high price) in a sample of 2,191 U.S. startups applying for patent protection in the 24 months following their first round of venture capital funding. I observe both successful and unsuccessful patent...

The advancement of the knowledge frontier is crucial for technological innovation and human progress. Using novel data from the setting of mathematics, this paper establishes two results. First, we document that individuals who demonstrate exceptional talent in their teenage years have an...

We investigate whether having an advisor of the same gender is correlated with the productivity of PhD science students and their propensity to stay in academic science. Our analysis is based on an original dataset covering nearly 20,000 PhD graduates and their advisors from U.S. chemistry...

We investigate the causes and consequences of the aging of the scientific workforce. Using novel data on the population of US chemistry faculty members over fifty years, we find that the secular increase in the age of the academic workforce has been mainly driven by the slowdown in faculty...

Europe is perceived to lag behind the US in converting its academic results into economic outcomes. Using new survey data and controlling for standard factors affecting the productivity of Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs), we find that European TTOs do not execute less licenses than US TTOs....

To examine the drivers of innovation, this paper studies the global R&D effort to fight the deadliest diseases and presents four results. We find: (1) global pharmaceutical R&D activity—measured by clinical trials—typically follows the ‘law of diminishing effort’: i.e. the elasticity of...

To examine the drivers of innovation, this paper studies the global R&D effort to fight the deadliest diseases and presents four results. We find: (1) global pharmaceutical R&D activity—measured by clinical trials—typically follows the 'law of diminishing efforts': i.e. the elasticity of R&D...