Latest Economics of Industry Papers

Spreading the Word: Geography, Policy and University Knowledge Diffusion

Sharon Belenzon, Mark Schankerman

EI 50. August 2010.
Using new data on citations to university patents and scientific publications, and measures of distance based on Google maps, we study how geography affects university knowledge diffusion. We show that knowledge flows from patents are localized in two respects: they decline sharply with distance up to about 100 miles, and they are strongly constrained by state borders, controlling for distance. While distance also constrains knowledge spillovers from publications, the state border does not. We investigate how the strength of the state border effect varies with university and state characteristics. It is larger for patents from public, as compared to private, universities and this is partly explained by the local development policies of universities. The border effect is larger in states with stronger non-compete laws that affect intra-state labor mobility, and those with greater reliance on in-state educated scientists and engineers. We confirm the impact of non-compete statutes by studying a policy reform in Michigan that introduced such restrictions.

Full article: http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/ei/ei50.pdf

Automobile Replacement: A DynamicStructural Approach

Pasquale Schiraldi

EI 49. June 2010.
This paper specifies and estimates a structural dynamic model of consumer demand for newand used durable goods. Its primary contribution is to provide an explicit estimationprocedure for transaction costs, which are crucial to capturing the dynamic nature ofconsumer decisions. In particular, transaction costs play a key role in determining consumerreplacement behavior in both primary and secondary markets for durable goods. The uniquedata set used in this paper has been collected by the Italian Motor Registry and covers theperiod from 1994 to 2004. It includes information about sales dates for individual cars overtime as well as the initial stock of cars in the sample period. Identification of transactioncosts is achieved from the variation in the share of consumers choosing to hold a given cartype each period, and from the share of consumers choosing to purchase the same car typethat period. Specifically, I estimate a random coefficients discrete choice model thatincorporates a dynamic optimal stopping problem in the spirit of Rust (1987). I apply thismodel to evaluate the impact of scrappage subsidies on the Italian automobile market in 1997and 1998.

Full article: http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/ei/ei49.pdf

Second-Hand Markets and Collusion byManufacturers of Semidurable Goods

Pasquale Schiraldi

EI 48. September 2009.
The focus of the present work is to study the impact of the second-hand market the collusivebehavior. I analyze firms’ preferences for having an active second-hand market and whetherpolicies (i.e. leasing policy, buy-back policy and warranty policy) that affect the functioningof the second-hand market strengthen collusion. I show how collective incentives to adoptstrategies that strengthen collusion often differ from monopoly incentives to achieve higherprofits.

Full article: http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/ei/ei48.pdf