Results

Blog

VoxEU:

Firms slice up global production to protect their knowhow

Imitation is a first-order concern for enterprises operating global production processes. Firms routinely source knowledge-intensive inputs from many countries, including those with weak intellectual property laws. This ...Read more...

Journal article

Review of World Economics:

The changing structure of global value chains and technological change: evidence from the firm-level patent data

This paper explores how changes in the relative position in the Global Value Chains (GVCs) affect firms? innovation activities. The analysis combines matched patent-firm data with information on GVC networks from the OEC...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

Tickets to the global market: first US patent award and Chinese firm exports

We investigate how international patent activity enables firms from emerging economies to thrive in the global marketplace. We match Chinese customs data to US patent records, and leverage the quasi-random assignment of ...Read more...

Journal article

World Development:

Institutional transition: Social cohesion and demand for land titles in urban Tanzania

In much of urban Africa, demand for statutory property rights remains low even when governments coordinate land titling programmes and reduce the costs of registration. This paper studies the Residential Licence programm...Read more...

Blog

United States Politics and Policy:

Studying women's property rights in the 19th century can help uncover the missing inventors

The underrepresentation of disadvantaged groups, particularly women, in the innovation process and entrepreneurial activities is an ongoing issue across the globe. Despite making up 50 percent of the population, women co...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Property rights and innovation dynamism: the role of women inventors

How do stronger property rights for disadvantaged groups affect innovation? I investigate the impact of strengthened property rights for women on U.S. innovation by analyzing the Married Women's Property Acts, which gran...Read more...

Journal article

Urban Studies:

Unbundling tenure security and demand for property rights: evidence from urban Tanzania

Rapid urbanisation in sub-Saharan Africa occurs with little land registration, and government-led regularisation schemes often find limited uptake of title deeds by residents. In theory, there could be private and public...Read more...

Journal article

Research Policy:

A new dataset to study a century of innovation in Europe and in the US

Innovation is an important driver of potential growth but quantitative evidence on the dynamics of innovative activities in the long-run are hardly documented due to the lack of data, especially in Europe. In this paper,...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Tickets to the global market: first US patent awards and Chinese firm exports

We investigate how international patent activity enables firms from emerging economies to thrive in the global marketplace. We match Chinese customs data to US patent records and leverage the quasi-random assignment of U...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Exporting ideas: knowledge flows from expanding trade in goods

We examine the effect of entry by French firms into a new export market on the dynamics of their patents' citations received from that destination. Applying a difference-in-differences identification strategy with a stag...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Knowledge spillovers from clean innovation. A tradeoff between growth and climate?

Innovation policy faces a tradeoff between growth and climate objectives when the knowledge spillover externality from clean innovation is low compared to other sectors. To make such a comparison, we use patent data to e...Read more...

Journal article

The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization:

The dynamics of the debate about gay rights: evidence from US newspapers

Changing attitudes are the result of a battle for hearts and minds in which agents for and against change try to persuade others. We know very little about this process. We develop a methodology for measuring the intensi...Read more...

Journal article

Research Policy:

Global value chains and domestic innovation

This paper explores how changes in both position and participation in Global Value Chain (GVC) networks affect firm innovation. The analysis combines matched patent-firm data for Japan with measures of GVC network centra...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Review :

Technology gaps, trade and income

This paper quantifies the contribution of technology gaps to international income inequality. I develop an endogenous growth model where cross-country differences in R&D efficiency and cross-industry differences in innov...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Clean technologies for growth and equity

Public investment in developing energy sources that don?t cause climate change is a strategy for economic growth that could also contribute to the UK?s levelling up agenda, says Ralf Martin. His analysis indicates that s...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The rise of China's technological power: the perspective from frontier technologies

We use patent data to study the contribution of the US, Europe, China and Japan to frontier technology using automated patent landscaping. We find that China's contribution to frontier technology has become quantitativel...Read more...

Journal article

Review of Economics and Statistics :

Ask a local: improving the public pricing of land titles in urban Tanzania

Information on willingness-to-pay is key for public pricing and allocation of services but not easily collected. Studying land titles in Dar-es-Salaam, we ask whether local leaders know and will reveal plot owners' willi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

A new dataset to study a century of innovation in Europe and in the US

Innovation is an important driver of potential growth but quantitative evidence on the dynamics of innovative activities in the long-run are hardly documented due to the lack of data, especially in Europe. In this paper,...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Ask a local: improving the public pricing of land titles in urban Tanzania

Information on willingness-to-pay is key for public pricing and allocation of services but not easily collected. Studying land titles in Dar-es-Salaam, we ask whether local leaders know and will reveal plot owners' willi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Knowledge spillovers from clean and emerging technologies in the UK

The UK government has committed to increase R&D support for clean technologies in an effort to meet its net-zero target by 2050. The opportunity cost of such programs crucially depends on the value of knowledge spillover...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Technology transfer in global value chains

Firm-to-firm relationships in global value chains create opportunities for North-South technology diffusion. This paper studies technology transfer in value chains when contracts are incomplete and in-put production tech...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Air pollution and innovation

If air pollution harms innovation -- and therefore future productivity -- existing assessments of its economic cost are incomplete. We estimate the effect of fine particulate matter concentration on inventive output in 1...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Opposing firm-level responses to the China shock: horizontal competition versus vertical relationships

We decompose the "China shock" into two components that induce different adjustments for firms exposed to Chinese exports: a horizontal shock affecting firms selling goods that compete with similar imported Chinese goods...Read more...

Journal article

Review of Economics and Statistics:

The tyranny of the single-minded: guns, environment, and abortion

We study how electoral incentives affect policy choices on secondary issues, which only minorities of voters care intensely about. We develop a model in which office and policy-motivated politicians vote in favor of or a...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Geography:

Colonial legacies: shaping African cities

Institutions persisting from colonial rule affect the spatial structure and conditions under which 100s of millions of people live in Sub-saharan African cities. In a sample of 318 cities, Francophone cities have more co...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Guns, environment and abortion: how single-minded voters shape politicians decisions

We study how electoral incentives affect policy choices on secondary issues, which only minorities of voters care intensely about. We develop a model in which office and policy motivated politicians choose to support or ...Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

Take what you can: property rights, contestability and conflict

Weak property rights are strongly associated with underdevelopment, low state capacity and civil conflict. In economic models of conflict, outbreaks of violence require a prize that is both valuable and contestable. This...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Take What You Can: Property Rights, Contestability and Conflict

Weak property rights are strongly associated with underdevelopment, low state capacity and civil conflict. In economic models of conflict, outbreaks of violence require two things: the prize must be both valuable and con...Read more...

Journal article

Research Policy:

Measuring technological novelty with patent-based indicators

This study provides a new, more comprehensive measurement of technological novelty. Integrating insights from the existing economics and management literature, we characterize inventions ex ante along two dimensions of t...Read more...

Journal article

Scientometrics:

Patent citation indicators: one size fits all?

The number of citations that a patent receives is considered an important indicator of the quality and impact of the patent. However, a variety of methods and data sources can be used to calculate this measure. This pape...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Patents and Cumulative Innovation: Causal Evidence from the Courts

Cumulative innovation is central to economic growth. Do patent rights facilitate or impede follow-on innovation? We study the causal effect of removing patent rights by court invalidation on subsequent research related t...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Fast-Tracking 'Green' Patent Applications: An Empirical Analysis

This paper presents the first empirical analysis of programmes to fast-track `green? patent applications in place in seven Intellectual Property offices around the world. We find that only a small share of green patent a...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

A Model of Equilibrium Institutions

Institutions that serve the interests of an elite are often cited as an important reason for poor economic performance. This paper builds a model of institutions that allocate resources and power to maximize the payoff o...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Patent Thickets and the Market for Innovation: Evidence from Settlement of Patent Disputes

We study how fragmentation of patent rights (`patent thickets?) and the formation of the Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affected the duration of patent disputes, and thus the speed of technology diffusion...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Is Distance Dying at Last? Falling Home Bias in Fixed Effects Models of Patent Citations

We examine the ?home bias? of international knowledge spillovers as measured by the speed of patent citations (i.e. knowledge spreads slowly over international boundaries). We present the first compelling econometric evi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Strategic Patenting and Software Innovation

Strategic patenting is widely believed to raise the costs of innovating, especially in industries characterised by cumulative innovation. This paper studies the effects of strategic patenting on R&D, patenting and market...Read more...