Economic Research Working Papers

Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property: An Economic Perspective
Economic Research Working Paper No.77

Author(s): Alexander Cuntz, Carsten Fink, Hansueli Stamm; Publication year: 2024

The emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has profound implications for intellectual property (IP) frameworks. While much of the discussion so far has focused on the legal implications, we focus on the economic dimension. We dissect AI's role as both a facilitator and disruptor of innovation and creativity. Recalling economic principles and reviewing relevant literature, we explore the evolving landscape of AI innovation incentives and the challenges it poses to existing IP frameworks. From patentability dilemmas to copyright conundrums, we find that there is a delicate balance between fostering innovation and safeguarding societal interests amidst rapid technological progress. We also point to areas where future economic research could offer valuable insights to policymakers.

Access to science and innovation in the developing world
Economic Research Working Paper No.78

Author(s): Alessio Muscarnera, Alexander Cuntz, Frank Mueller-Langer, Marc Scheufen, Prince C. Oguguo; Publication year: 2024

We examine the implications of lowering barriers to online access to scientific publications for science and innovation in developing countries. We investigate whether and how free or low-cost access to scientific publications through the UN-led Research For Life (R4L) initiative leads to more scientific publications and clinical trials of authors affiliated with research institutions in developing countries. We find that free or reduced-fee access to the health science literature through Hinari (WHO-led subprogramme) increases the scientific publication output and clinical trials output of institutions in developing countries. In contrast, once we control for selection bias, we do not find empirical support for a positive Hinari effect on knowledge spillovers and local institutions’ research input into global patenting, as measured by paper citations in patent documents. Main findings can be generalized to other R4L subprogrammes and are likely to also apply to the WIPO-led Access to Research for Development and Innovation (ARDI) programme.

Innovation Policies Under Economic Complexity
Economic Research Working Paper No.79

Author(s): Christian Chacua, Matte Hartog, Muhammed A. Yildirim, Ricardo Hausmann, Shreyas Gadgin Matha; Publication year: 2024

Recent geopolitical challenges have revived the implementation of industrial and innovation policies. Ongoing discussions focus on supporting cutting-edge industries and strategic technologies but hardly pay attention to their impact on economic growth. In light of this, we discuss the design of innovation policies to address current development challenges while considering the complex nature of productive activities. Our approach conceives economic development and technological progress as a process of accumulation and diversification of knowledge. This process is limited by the tacit nature of knowledge and by countries’ binding constraints to growth. Consequently, effective innovation policies should be place-based and multidimensional, leveraging countries’ existing capabilities and addressing countries’ current problems. This contrasts policies that lead to economic efficiencies, such as copying other countries’ solutions to problems that countries do not currently have.

Global Trends in Innovation Patterns: A Complexity Approach
Economic Research Working Paper No.80

Author(s): Christian Chacua, Matte Hartog, Muhammed A. Yildirim, Ricardo Hausmann, Shreyas Gadgin Matha; Publication year: 2024

Technological know-how in a country shapes its growth potential and competitiveness. Scientific publications, patents, and international trade data offer complementary insights into how ideas from science, technology, and production evolve, combine, and are transformed into capabilities. Analyzing their trajectories enables a more comprehensive and multifaceted understanding of the whole innovation process, from generating ideas to internationally commercializing products. We analyze the production patterns in these three domains, documenting the differences between advanced and emerging market economies. We find that future income, patenting, and publishing growth correlate with the economic complexity indices calculated from these domains. Capabilities embedded in the country also shape future diversification opportunities and make the innovation process path dependent. Lastly, we also show that diversification opportunities can be inferred across innovation domains.

Can we map innovation capabilities?
Economic Research Working Paper No.81

Author(s): Christian Chacua, Eduardo Hernandez Rodriguez, Federico Moscatelli, Julio Raffo, Matte Hartog, Muhammed A. Yildirim, Shreyas Gadgin Matha; Publication year: 2024

Recent years have witnessed a resurgence of industrial policies globally. Through various industrial policy instruments, governments make critical scientific and technological choices that shape innovation paths and resource allocations. Our paper explores innovation capabilities as essential drivers of competitive outcomes, spanning science, technology, and production domains. Based on the economic complexity literature, we propose a methodological framework to measure the innovation capabilities empirically, leveraging data on scientific publications, patents, and trade. Our findings highlight the multidimensional nature of innovation capabilities and underscore the importance of understanding both the specialization and quality of these capabilities. Our results are in line with the complexity literature, as we also find: (i) positive correlations between the innovation complexity and economic growth; and, (ii) the predictive power of existing innovation capabilities for fostering new ones. Based on these findings, we propose novel indicators informing innovation policymaking on the innovation potential across science, technology, and production fields of an ecosystem. We suggest that innovation policymaking needs to be informed by deeper insights into innovation capabilities that are crucial for long-term growth and competitiveness improvement.

Innovation Complexity in AgTech: The case of Brazil, Kenya and the United States of America?
Economic Research Working Paper No.82

Author(s): Alica Daly, Gregory D. Graff, Intan Hamdan-Livramento; Publication year: 2024

This paper illustrates successful policies and incentives that build on local innovation capabilities across three agricultural innovation hubs at different income levels and across different geographical regions. It makes the case for how countries highly complex innovation ecosystems, which refer to the diversity and sophistication of local innovators and the types of innovation they produce, tend to have more opportunities to shift their technological path to the frontier. The paper focuses on three agricultural hubs across different income levels and geography to illustrate how smart policies that focus on building local capabilities can help countries diversify and create their own agricultural technological paths. These hubs include: São Paulo in Brazil, Nairobi in Kenya and Colorado in the United States of America.

The Evolution of the Two-Wheeler Industry: A Comparative Study of Italy, Japan, and India
Economic Research Working Paper No.83

Author(s): Paolo Aversa; Publication year: 2024

This study leverages secondary data to provide a comprehensive outlook on the origin and evolution of the two-wheeler industry in Italy, Japan, and India. The study reveals how different technological, design, and manufacturing capabilities, combined with specific economic and social features in the historical contexts, have contributed to determine different trajectories in the evolution of these national industries. Recent trends towards digital transformation, electric mobility, connected driving are discussed. Three main takeaways emerge from our analysis. Firstly, the local capabilities play a crucial role in shaping both the origin and progression of the technology and the industry. Secondly, the two-wheeler industry displays patterns and trajectories that mimic the automotive industry, which can thus be used to interpret and forecast past, present, and future of motorcycles. Thirdly, the two-wheeler industry has been uniquely influenced by other industries, which has enhanced the complexity and effectiveness of its products and introduced novel elements which are reshaping the international demand for two-wheelers.

Heterogeneous Development Paths to Growth and Innovation: The Evolution of the Video Game Industry across Four Hubs
Economic Research Working Paper No.84

Author(s): Hakan Ozalp; Publication year: 2024

This study explores the evolution and success drivers of the global video game industry, focusing on key hubs within Finland, Poland, Japan, and the United States. Using a qualitative methodology, the research delves into how unique capabilities and historical development have contributed to the industry's growth across these nations. The findings reveal diverse pathways to building video game industry clusters, emphasizing the role of cross-industry skill transfer, intellectual property, and government support. In traditional hubs like Japan and the United States, the crossover of capabilities from entertainment and hardware industries has been crucial, whereas, in newer hubs like Finland and Poland, the growth is attributed to unique local developments such as hobby coder communities or leveraging the initial localization efforts to build globally appealing games. It further highlights the pivotal role of education in sustaining the growth of video game industry hubs.

Innovation and Intellectual Property Use in the Global Video Game Industry
Economic Research Working Paper No.85

Author(s): Prince C. Oguguo; Publication year: 2024

This paper is an analysis of the evolution of the global video game industry, a sector characterized by rapid technological innovation and changing business models. It builds on the work of Özalp (2024) and delves into how innovation in hardware, software, digital transformation and business models have redefined the boundaries of game development and player experiences. The paper also explores the important job roles in the industry, the role of intellectual property and end with predictions for the future of the industry. It aims to provide an accessible understanding of the industry's evolution, its current state, and its potential future directions.

Closing Innovation and Intellectual Property Diversity Gaps: a Global Literature Review
Economic Research Working Paper No.86

Author(s): Elodie Carpentier, Jennifer Brant, Utsav Bahl, Aikaterini Kanellia; Publication year: 2024

Innovation is a driver of competitive advantage and economic growth, with patent rights playing a critical supporting role. However, differential access to patent rights and relatively less participation in innovation can affect women and people from other historically underrepresented groups, thereby hindering progress and limiting the potential economic benefits generated by innovation. This paper reviews the global literature on these “diversity gaps”, identifies their key drivers, and documents international policies and initiatives that show promise in addressing them. Building upon Shapanka and Fechner (2018), it expands the geographic scope and reinforces the scientific basis of their analysis. The paper also provides recommendations for a wide range of stakeholders and offers insights for fostering more inclusive and equitable innovation ecosystems.

COVID-19, Innovative Firms and Resilience
Economic Research Working Paper No. 73

Author(s): Filippo Belloc, Massimo Del Gatto, Michele Battisti; Publication year: 2023

This paper explores the empirical association between patents and various indicators of firm resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic with worldwide firm-level data from manufacturing industries. The study shows that patent-intensive firms have a reduced probability of exit, in particular if they are larger and if engaging with complementary investments in R&D and other intangibles. Additional estimates show that firm productivity has been an important transmission channel. Taken together, the results presented in the paper offer evidence-based findings pointing to patents as an important potential factor contributing to firm resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. Policy insights are discussed.

IP assets and film finance - a primer on standard practices in the U.S.
Economic Research Working Paper No. 74

Author(s): Alessio Muscarnera, Alexander Cuntz, Matthias Sahli, Prince C. Oguguo; Publication year: 2023

This research summarizes the basic economics of film finance and standard practices in the U.S. movie industry. It shows how risk and uncertainty around new film finance are managed by the private sector and what market-based solutions have been developed to mitigate risk in the sector. Based on a series of expert interviews and exploratory data analysis, the research presents the most common types of financial deals on the ground and reoccurring funding practices for new film production and distribution in the past twenty years, including a discussion of most recent trends and digital changes in the sector. In particular, the research highlights the prominent role of intellectual property (IP) in financial transactions of the movie industry and it discusses policy options in the U.S. and beyond to better leverage IP assets for financing purposes.

Digitization and Availability of Artworks in Online Museum Collections
Economic Research Working Paper No.75

Author(s): Alexander Cuntz, Matthias Sahli, Paul J. Heald; Publication year: 2023

We provide quantitative evidence from museum collections about how copyright status affects the availability of digital images of artworks. The paper applies a regression discontinuity and differences-in-differences design to estimate online availability of artworks from U.S. collections on digital platforms. We find a strong increase in the availability of digital surrogates when copyright is perceived to expire and original artworks are likely to transition to the public domain. Moreover, artworks and surrogates made available see a large number of downstream reuses based on google image search data, which indicates online availability is of commercial and public value independent of right status. Notably, we show that upstream surrogates of public domain artworks made available by museums are positively correlated with higher image resolution quality as compared to digitized artworks still protected under copyright laws. At the same time, it seems expressed industry norms can help encourage U.S. museums to also make low-resolution surrogates of copyrighted artworks available.

Ars longa, vita brevis: The death of the creator and the impact on exhibitions and auction markets
Economic Research Working Paper No.76

Author(s): Alexander Cuntz, Matthias Sahli; Publication year: 2023

This paper studies the death effect on artists’ exhibitions and commercial success in the secondary art market. Based on a random sample of 1’000 popular artists born after the turn of the 20th century, we construct a novel panel data set of their worldwide exhibition history and auction transactions. By applying a regression discontinuity and event study design, we find an overall negative effect of artist death on the number of exhibitions. However, this post mortem effect disappears in longer term. Roughly ten years after death, exhibitions are back to pre-death levels. Arguably, transaction cost and higher auction prices after death also temporarily increase the average cost of exhibiting artworks, e.g. higher market valuation raises (unobserved) insurance cost for exhibitions. Hedonic auction price models confirm this intuition and suggest a significant price premium posthumously. We find substantial heterogeneity in the treatment depending on the age and reputation of the artist at death. Overall findings explain important mechanisms for the post mortem value of artistic work and have important policy implications for the creative sectors and the design of legacy stewardship rules, including a possible justification for rights granted post mortem such as copyright.

Calculating private and social returns to COVID-19 vaccine innovation
Economic Research Working Paper No. 68

Author(s): Carsten Fink; Publication year: 2022

What is the return to COVID-19 vaccine innovation? This paper seeks to quantify both private and social returns, using available data on commercialized vaccines and certain assumptions about the pandemic’s epidemiological path as well as the economic costs of containment measures. The calculations reveal high returns to innovation. In the baseline scenario, the social benefit of vaccine innovation amounts to 70.5 trillion United States (U.S.) dollars globally, exceeding its private benefit by a factor of 887. The calculations bear on the private and public incentives to invest in vaccine innovation.

Direction of innovation in developing countries and its driving forces
Economic Research Working Paper No. 69

Author(s): Xiaolan Fu, Liu Shi; Publication year: 2022

Innovation is a major driving force of long-term economic growth and sustainable development. Direction of innovation matters because technical change is not neutral and hence bears significant social, economic and environmental development implications. This paper contributes to the literature through a systematic examination of the direction of innovation in developing and emerging economies and its driving forces. It shows that innovation in the global South exhibits a vibrant and diverse landscape when we do not confine ourselves with traditional research and innovation indicators. While emerging economies are accelerating their pace in inventive activities in fields such as ICTs, biotech and engineering, low-income countries (LICs) are also found to be active in learning-based, incremental “under-the-radar innovations” (URIs). These URIs that are introduced through international technology transfer and indigenous innovative efforts. Indigenous sources of URIs play a primary role in LICs, contributed by localised learning-by-doing, close interaction with customers and embeddedness in regional production networks and clusters. However, insufficient role of the state, a low science and technology intensity and a lack of university-industry linkage limit the potential of URIs. International technology transfer is another important driver of technical change in developing countries. However, its strengthen varies across countries due to differences in host country policy, absorptive capacity, and the type of foreign economic engagement that they have as well as the inappropriateness of transferred foreign technologies mostly from Global North. Given the status of direction of innovation and its driving forces in developing countries, this report argues that the unfolding 4th industrial revolution poses both challenges and opportunities to LICs. Policy implications are discussed.

Second World War and the direction of medical innovation
Economic Research Working Paper No. 70

Author(s): Bhaven Sampat; Publication year: 2022

This paper provides an overview of the role of the United States of America (U.S.) Second World War research effort on the direction of innovation, with a particular focus on medical research. It provides an overview of the U.S. wartime research program, reviews quantitative evidence on the effects of the overall wartime research shock on postwar patenting, describes the wartime medical research effort, and summarizes case studies of five major wartime medical research programs (penicillin, antimalarials, vaccines, blood substitutes, and hormones) and their effects on postwar R&D. It concludes by drawing out implications for crisis innovation and the direction of innovation in general, discussing mechanisms through which crises may have long-run effects, and highlighting hypotheses warranting further investigation.

Innovations in the exploration of outer space
Economic Research Working Paper No. 71

Author(s): Henry R. Hertzfeld, Benjamin Staats, George Leaua; Publication year: 2022

Human exploration of outer space has stimulated multiple innovations from both government and private sources. The decision to invest vast sums of money over a short period of time for the moon programs of the 1960s radically increased the level of innovation. Accomplishing this required new forms of energy for launch and space operations, reductions in the weight of components, and advanced computational capabilities, among many other technological improvements. The organization and management of bringing all of the components together was also essential. This report discusses economic aspects and overall benefits of those innovations as they fit into the prior and continuing push for advanced space capabilities.

Directing innovation towards a low-carbon future
Economic Research Working Paper No. 72

Author(s): Joëlle Noailly; Publication year: 2022

Achieving the ambition of limiting global warming to 1.5°C to 2°C by the end of the century as enacted in the Paris Climate Agreement will require massive investments in environmental technologies and a forceful change of path away from high-carbon technologies. This report presents novel descriptive evidence on global trends in patenting in low-carbon technologies, with a particular focus on the energy and road transport sector. The analysis discusses the role of public policies in driving the rate and the direction of innovation for a low-carbon future.

Expanding the World Gender-Name Dictionary: WGND 2.0
Economic Research Working Paper No. 64

Author(s): Gema Lax Martínez, Helena Saenz de Juano-i-Ribes, Deyun Yin, Bruno Le Feuvre, Intan Hamdan-Livramento, Kaori Saito, Julio Raffo; Publication year: 2021

This paper revisits the first World Gender Name Dictionary (WGND 1.0), allowing to disambiguate the gender in data naming physical persons (Lax Martínez et al., 2016). We discuss its advantages and limitations and propose an expansion based on updated data and additional sources. By including more than 26 million records linking given names and 195 different countries and territories, the resulting WGND 2.0 substantially increases the international coverage of its processor. As a result, it is particularly designed to be applied to intellectual property unit-record data naming inventors, designers, individual applicants and other creators disclosed in these data.

COVID-19 Impact on Artistic Income
Economic Research Working Paper No. 65

Author(s): Alexander Cuntz, Matthias Sahli; Publication year: 2021

This paper assesses the impact of the pandemic crisis on self-employed income among artists resident in Germany. Using unique data from the latest available public insurance records, we show that musicians and performing artists are among the most vulnerable groups, and that writers, on average, are relatively less impacted. Moreover, the paper looks at the impact of the 2020 crisis on income differences by gender, career stages and regions, and it investigates the effect of specific non-pharmaceutical, public intervention implemented in German states.

Intermediary Liability and Trade in Follow-on Innovation
Economic Research Working Paper No. 66

Author(s): Alexander Cuntz, Matthias Sahli; Publication year: 2021

Liability rules affect the incentives of intermediaries to disseminate and curate creative works, in particular when works build on the work of predecessors and they are potentially infringing copyright. In an application to the visual arts, we show that appropriation artists borrow images from different sources and incorporate them into new, derivative works of art. By doing so, they risk infringing copyright but also put commercial trade and availability of the work at litigation risk as liability can extend to intermediaries in markets (auction houses) or in public exhibitions (museums). Using a differences-in-differences model and unique data on the level of the individual art work, we empirically investigate the impact of the prominent 2013 Cariou v. Prince U.S. court decision on trade and availability in Appropriation Art.

The impacts of counterfeiting on corporate investment
Economic Research Working Paper No. 67

Author(s): Alexander Cuntz, Yi Qian; Publication year: 2021

This study uses a unique international database on customs seizures between the years 2011 to 2013 and matches global corporate statistics to study the impacts of counterfeiting on authentic corporations’ investment and revenues. Applying the matched sampling combined with panel analyses, we attempt to estimate the effects counterfeit incidences have on corporate research investment and on firm sales and revenues (“sales displacement”) in various industries. We find an overall negative effects on the R&D and net sales across various regression specifications, except for the broad sector of tools, materials, and vehicles (HS code 8).

Batman forever? The economics of overlapping rights
Economic Research Working Paper No. 61

Author(s): Alexander Cuntz, Franziska Kaiser; Publication year: 2020

When copyrighted comic characters are also protected under trademark laws, intellectual property (IP) rights can be overlapping. Arguably, registering a trademark can increase transaction costs for cross-media uses of characters, or it can help advertise across multiple sales channels. In an application to book, movie and video game publishing industries, we thus ask how creative reuse (innovation in uses) is affected in situations of overlapping rights, and whether ‘fuzzy boundaries’ of right frameworks are in fact enhancing or decreasing content sales.

Grand rights and opera reuse today
Economic Research Working Paper No. 62

Author(s): Alexander Cuntz; Publication year: 2020

This article studies the economic role of grand rights in the incentives to stage and reuse works from the opera canon. It complements previous research on the incentives to create new opera (Giorcelli and Moser, 2020) in the way it looks at copyright taxing availability and follow-on creativity around works. Based on a unique dataset of global opera performances, we find that changes in copyright status increase the number of total performances individual works receive on stage once copyright expires. Moreover, we provide preliminary evidence on chilling, long-term effects of status around premiering operas and revivals at the beginning of the copyright term. Based on these findings, we discuss limitations of the study and novel options for copyright policy frameworks.

Exclusive content and platform competition in Latin America
Economic Research Working Paper No. 63

Author(s): Alexander Cuntz, Kyle Bergquist; Publication year: 2020

Platforms often compete over non-price strategies such as the exclusive distribution of products. But these strategies are not always welfare-enhancing. Using rich data on audiovisuals distributed on platforms in Brazil, we find that non-exclusive distribution and availability of titles across platforms is more effective in deterring online piracy than in the single homing case. Moreover, in certain markets (TVOD), it induces higher average investment in the production of new titles upstream. We discuss options of copyright and antitrust policies in the light of these findings.

Innovation in the Polish health sector: A quality assessment
Economic Research Working Paper No. 47

Author(s): Żaneta Pacud; Publication year: 2019

This working paper aims to present the specifics of innovation in the Polish health industry through the prism of the experiences and opinions of a representative group of 42 companies from both the pharmaceutical and medtech sectors. Through analysis of in-depth interviews, it aims to illuminate the legal, economic and social mechanisms and phenomena that determine innovation in this sector. The survey examines which areas of the Polish health sector are most innovative, the understanding of innovation that prevails in the sector, and the characteristics of R&D activities carried out there. Subsequently, the study explores the general impact of intellectual property, and particularly of patent law on innovation, in the Polish health sector. Finally, it surveys the other economic and legal instruments currently stimulating innovation and how legal regulations and governmental policy could be modified to create an optimal pro-innovation environment. The conclusions include short legal and factual background of innovation in the Polish health sector, the summarized results of the conducted analysis and final comments concerning the level and culture of innovation within the examined industry.

Technology Appropriation and Technology Transfer in the Brazilian Mining Sector
Economic Research Working Paper No. 53

Author(s): Ana Claudia Nonato da Silva Loureiro, Domenica Blundi, Felipe Veiga Lopes, Gustavo Travassos Pereira da Silva, Marina Filgueiras Jorge, Sergio Medeiros Paulino de Carvalho, Vitoria Orind; Publication year: 2019

This paper focuses on the competitive dynamics, strategic challenges, technological needs and institutional innovation-promoting arrangements in Brazil’s mining sector in order to identify the ways in which mining firms and mining equipment, technology and services suppliers (METS) handle innovation appropriation and technology transfer in the country. As the main sample consisted of resident and non-resident companies, the key technological areas of mining-related patenting in Brazil and the main patent stakeholders have been identified. The analysis of technology transfer among firms and to other mining industry stakeholders, mainly universities, drew on import contracts and highlighted the role played by foreign METS. A case study of Vale S.A., Brazil’s largest mining enterprise, has been included, with emphasis on Vale’s strategies to mitigate external challenges and to meet technological needs through innovation.

Innovation and IP Rights in the Chilean Copper Mining Sector: The Role of the Mining, Equipment, Technology and Services Firms
Economic Research Working Paper No. 54

Author(s): Claudio Bravo-Ortega, Juan José Price Elton; Publication year: 2019

This analysis of intellectual property (IP) protection practices among mining equipment, technology and services suppliers (METS) in Chile’s copper mining sector adds to a body of literature that has hitherto focused on high-income countries. It is based on data collated from an online survey of resident METS and on semi-structured interviews of executives from mining companies and suppliers, including two universities. The main conclusion is that, although METS appear to be innovative in relation to the mining sector and the economy as a whole, only a few use intellectual property rights (IPRs) to protect their innovations. The main reasons for this finding appear to be the cost and expected complexity of the registration process. Another noteworthy finding is the view that Chile has the requisite legal IPR expertise, but commercial capabilities (expertise in IPR-based innovation management and business plans) are much less developed. In the last section, four case studies of product and process innovation by four mining suppliers add some interesting insights to the analysis.

Innovation in the Mining Sector and Cycles in Commodity Prices
Economic Research Working Paper No. 55

Author(s): Mr. David Humphreys, Mr. Julio Raffo, Ms. Alica Daly, Ms. Giulia Valacchi; Publication year: 2019

This paper analyses the evolution of innovation in the mining sector and how this innovation responds to the economic environment, in particular to changes in commodity prices. For this purpose, we combine commodity price data with innovation data as proxied by patent filings extracted from a novel unit record database containing comprehensive patent and firm level data for the mining sector from 1970 to 2015. We include patents registered both by mining companies and mining equipment, technology and service (METS) firms. With a multi-country panel analysis, we find that innovation in the mining sector is cyclical. Innovation increases in periods of high commodity prices while decreasing during commodity price recessions. Our results suggest that innovation increases mostly with long price cycle variations, while mostly unaffected by medium and short cycles. METS related innovation seem the driving force of this mechanism. In contrast, countries specializing in mining industries are found to be slower in reacting to price changes.

Measuring Innovation in the Mining Industry with Patents
Economic Research Working Paper No. 56

Author(s): Mr. Julio Raffo, Ms. Alica Daly, Ms. Giulia Valacchi; Publication year: 2019

Traditionally, the mining sector has been considered a slow innovator compared to other industries, like the manufacturing or pharmaceutical industries. However, we observe an upsurge in the innovation activity of the mining industry in the first half of the 2000s. During this period, mining innovation started to increase rapidly after periods of stagnation and downward trends. To conduct and in-depth investigation of the global trends and patterns behind this structural change in mining innovation, we formulated a general search strategy to identify patent activity in this sector. The strategy is repeatable over time and in multiple databases. It enabled us to produce a dataset of patents in mining and mining-related technologies. Using this newly-created database we identified at the basis of the structural change a switch away from refining technologies into exploration and environmental technologies probably explained by the took over of the so-called 4th Industrial Revolution. The types of actors active in the mining innovation also changed across time: there are now many more individuals, research centers and universities innovating in mining and relatively less companies. Finally, the country composition in the pool of mining innovation activity has radically changed with the appearance of China on the global scene starting from early 2000.

The Geography of Innovation: Local Hotspots and Global Innovation Networks
Economic Research Working Paper No. 57

Author(s): Riccardo Crescenzi, Simona Iammarino, Carolin Ioramashvili, Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, Michael Storper; Publication year: 2019

Through successive industrial revolutions, the geography of innovation around the globe has changed radically, and with it the geography of wealth creation and prosperity. Since the Third Industrial Revolution, high incomes are increasingly metropolitan, leading to a renewal of inter-regional divergence within countries. These metropolitan areas are also hotbeds of innovation. At the same time, global networks for the production and delivery of goods and services have expanded greatly in recent decades. The globalization of production is mirrored in the globalization of innovation. This paper argues that the emerging geography of innovation can be characterised as a globalized hub-to-hub system, rather than a geography of overall spread of innovation. Although much attention has been given to explaining the rise and growth of innovation clusters, there is as yet no unified framework for the micro-foundations of the agglomeration and dispersion of innovation. In addition, there appear to be strong links between growing geographical inequality of innovation and prosperity, particularly within countries. This is particularly relevant in the context of declining overall research productivity, which could be driving growing geographical concentration. All in all, there is a rich agenda for continuing to investigate the relationship between the geography of innovation, economic development and income distribution.

Tied In: The Global Network of Local Innovation
Economic Research Working Paper No. 58

Author(s): Ernest Miguelez, Julio Raffo, Christian Chacua, Massimiliano Coda-Zabetta, Deyun Yin, Francesco Lissoni, Gianluca Tarasconi; Publication year: 2019

In this paper we exploit a unique and rich dataset of patent applications and scientific publications in order to answer several questions concerned with two current phenomena on the way knowledge is produced and shared worldwide: its geographical spread at the international level and its spatial concentration in few worldwide geographical hotspots. We find that the production of patents and scientific publications has spread geographically to several countries, and has not kept within the traditional knowledge producing economies (Western Europe, Japan and the U.S.). We observe that part of this partial geographical spread of knowledge activities is due to the setting up of Global Innovation Networks, first toward more traditional innovative countries, and then towards emerging economies too. Yet, despite the increasing worldwide spread of knowledge production, we do not see the same spreading process within countries, and even we see some increased concentration in some of them. This may have, of course, important distributional consequences within countries. Moreover, these selected areas also concentrate a large and increasing connectivity, within their own country to other hotspots, and across countries through Global Innovation Networks.

Global Roots of Innovation in Plant Biotechnology
Economic Research Working Paper No. 59

Author(s): Gregory D. Graff, Intan Hamdan-Livramento; Publication year: 2019

Innovation in agricultural biotechnology has the potential to increase agricultural productivity and quality, ultimately raising incomes for farmers across the world. Advances in the field have produced crops that are resistant to certain diseases, that result in higher yield than before, that can grow in extreme soil conditions, such as in arid and salty environments and even those that are infused with nutrients. Moreover, the technology has been hailed as a potential solution to addressing global issues of hunger and poverty. It therefore follows that innovation in this field finds strong support from the public sector as well as the private sector. This paper traces the evolution of the global innovation landscape of plant biotechnology over the past couple of decades. Drawing on information contained in patent documents and scientific publications, it identifies the sources of innovation in the field, where they are located and demonstrates how these innovative centers connect to one another. There are three important findings. First, the global innovation network of agricultural biotechnology showcases a prime example of how innovation activities spread to many parts of the world. Second, while there are more countries participating in the innovation network, most of these innovation centers are concentrated in the urban areas and away from the rural where most of the transgenic crops are harvested. Third, the increasing need for collaboration between the private and public sectors to bring the invention to the market may have effect on how the returns to innovation are appropriated.

Measuring Innovation in the Autonomous Vehicle Technology
Economic Research Working Paper No. 60

Author(s): Maryam Zehtabchi; Publication year: 2019

Automotive industry is going through a technological shock. Multiple intertwined technological advances (autonomous vehicle, connect vehicles and mobility-as-a-Service) are creating new rules for an industry that had not changed its way of doing business for almost a century. Key players from the tech and traditional automobile sectors – although with different incentives – are pooling resources to realize the goal of self-driving cars. AV innovation by auto and tech companies’ innovation is still largely home based, however, there is some shifting geography at the margin. AV and other related technologies are broadening the automotive innovation landscape, with several IT-focused hotspots – which traditionally were not at the center of automotive innovation – gaining prominence.

Enhancing Innovation in the Ugandan Agri-Food Sector: Robusta Coffee Planting Material & Tropical Fruit Processing
Economic Research Working Paper No. 42

Author(s): Dick Kawooya, Gracious Diiro, Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, Travis J. Lybbert; Publication year: 2018

Uganda's innovation performance in recent years has consistently outpaced other low-income and Sub-Saharan African countries. Though encouraging, this nascent progress will only benefit the broader Ugandan population if policy makers address specific constraints in the innovation systems of the critical agri-food sector, which is hampered by low productivity and profitability. In this report, we explore these constraints using an agricultural value chains framework with particular focus on the Robusta Coffee Planting Material Pipeline and tropical fruit processing.

Intellectual property use in middle income countries: the case of Chile
Economic Research Working Paper No. 43

Author(s): Bronwyn H. Hall, Carsten Fink, Christian Helmers; Publication year: 2018

We analyze the use of intellectual property (IP) by firms in Chile over the decade 1995-2005 as the then middle-income country experienced rapid economic growth of 4.7 percent per year. We use a novel dataset that contains a combination of detailed firm-level information from the annual manufacturing census, information on firms’ innovative activities from Chile’s innovation surveys, and firms’ patent, industrial design, and trademark filings with the Chilean IP office. We use these data to look at how IP use by companies has changed over time and analyze the determinants of IP use, in particular first-time use. We find that sales growth prompts first-time use of patents and trademarks, though such use does not change the growth trajectory of firms nor does it improve their total factor productivity. We also find that trademark use is associated with new-to-the-world product innovation, which suggests that branding may be an important mechanism to appropriate returns to innovation in a middle-income country like Chile.

Measuring innovation in energy technologies: green patents as captured by WIPO's IPC green inventory
Economic Research Working Paper No. 44

Author(s): Kunihiko Fushimi, Kyle Bergquist, Lorena Rivera León, Ning Xu, Sacha Wunsch-Vincent; Publication year: 2018

We analyze inventions in green energy technologies over the period 2005-2017. We use a novel dataset, making use of the IPC Green Inventory of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to analyze four broad categories of green energy technologies including alternative energy production technologies, energy conservation technologies, and green transportation. We use these data to look at how patent families and PCT international patent applications have evolved in this field in recent years. We find that energy innovation-related patenting has first expanded exponentially up until 2013, both in terms of the total number of patent families and PCT international patent applications in green energy technologies. Yet this period of accelerated growth in the number of published green energy patents has been followed by a period of deceleration—even a slow decline. Although most green energy technologies have seen a downward trend in the annual number of patents published since 2012, the decline has been most pronounced in nuclear power generation technologies and alternative energy production technologies. The latter notably include renewable energy technologies, such as solar and wind energy, and fuel cells. In contrast, patents in energy conservation technologies and green transportation technologies have continued to grow, but at a slower pace.

Innovation in the pharmaceutical and medical technologies industries of Poland
Economic Research Working Paper No. 45

Author(s): Rafał Wisła, Tomasz Sierotowicz; Publication year: 2018

This paper analyzes the recent economic and innovation trends of the health industries in Poland. The health industries have observed remarkable growth since entering into the EU. While the pharmaceutical industry faces some economic slowdown since 2011, the medtech industry shows substantial dynamism for its small size. The Polish health industry has still much to do to improve its innovation status. However, the observed trend of the innovation dynamics is cause for optimism. Polish firms in the health industries are increasingly innovating and extracting economic results from these innovations.

Innovativeness of the Polish health sector: a patent analytics study
Economic Research Working Paper No. 46

Author(s): Dorota Szlompek, Elżbieta Balcerowska, Karol Gabryel, Małgorzata Kozłowska, Michał Gołacki; Publication year: 2018

The Polish health related patenting increased rapidly in the last decade making Poland the top CEE economy. Still, most of the filings remain only national, making Poland just a small share of the EU total and relatively less specialized than other EU countries. A limited number of higher education applicants accounted for 42 percent of patents and utility models, with a clear specialization in pharmaceutical technologies. Most private applicants were SMEs and individuals specialized in medtech. The innovative activity is concentrated in a few provinces and cities. Polish health related innovation is a collaborative although mostly domestic effort. Poland’s pharmaceutical specialization is on non-biological preparations (42%) and new chemical compounds (31%); while the medtech specialization is in diagnosis and surgery (34%) and prostheses, stents and orthopedic (18%).

The economic analysis of patent litigation data
Economic Research Working Paper No. 48

Author(s): Christian Helmers; Publication year: 2018

Enforceability of patent rights is the backbone of the patent system. We review differences in the way patent litigation systems are designed across jurisdictions. We also discuss challenges in collecting and accessing patent litigation data as well as their economic analysis. We provide some descriptive analysis of patent litigation in the U.S. and UK for the period 2010-2016 and 2007-2013, respectively. We also analyze administrative post-grant validity challenges in form of the inter partes review in the U.S. and oppositions at the EPO.

Creators’ Income Situation in the Digital Age
Economic Research Working Paper No. 49

Author(s): Alexander Cuntz; Publication year: 2018

The digital transformation imposes both opportunities and risks for creativity and for creative employment, with implications for trends in income levels and the distribution of income. First, we consider skill-biased technological change as a determinant of income and labor market outcomes in the arts. Arguably, the IT revolution has changed the demand for certain skills, with creative occupations being more in demand than general employment. Second, we consider declines in the costs of generating new works and artistic experimentation due to digital technologies, and their effect on the barriers to entry in labor markets. Third, we touch upon the rise of online contract labor in certain creative professions as a determinant of income. Here, online platforms can change creators’ access to work opportunities and it may alter the way income is distributed. We find that wage trends for creative workers in the digital age outperform general trends in the population: based on various data sources and various ways to identify creators, we see creators losing less or even gaining a better income position in relative terms. From a policy perspective, results do not lend support to the idea that creators’ income situation has systematically worsened with the rise of the internet and its intermediaries. Evidence on changing distributions of income is ambiguous as trends differ from one country to the next.

Unpacking predictors of income and income satisfaction for artists
Economic Research Working Paper No. 50

Author(s): Alexander Cuntz, Angie L. Miller; Publication year: 2018

The stereotype of the “starving artist” is pervasive in modern Western culture, but previous research on artists and income is mixed. The goal of this study is to explore how several demographic variables, along with self-reported behaviors and artistic activities associated with non-monetary and monetary motivators, predict income and income satisfaction for artists.Using unique survey data on current working artists in the United States, we provide empirical evidence on substantial reputational rewards and rewards from altruistic behaviors as important sources of artists’ utility and, arguably, sources of their motivation to create new works. Moreover, we find that the evidence on “procedural” utility from working in the arts is less straightforward, and we find that many artists are pooling and diversifying financial risks on household levels. Overall, quantitative findings indicate that artists may have different criteria and conceptualizations when it comes to income, and they may derive value from their work in a variety of ways aside from income.

Submarine Trademarks
Economic Research Working Paper No. 51

Author(s): Amanda F. Myers, Andrea Fosfuri, Carsten Fink, Christian Helmers; Publication year: 2018

Companies use trademarks to protect their brands from outright imitation or competition by confusingly similar products. However, publication of trademark filings by the trademark office discloses information about a firm’s new product or service. This creates a trade-off between legal protection and disclosure of information. We analyze the trade-off through the lens of “submarine trademarks” in the U.S. – submarine trademarks are trademarks whose publication and hence disclosure to the public is strategically delayed. This is achieved through a particular international filing strategy that is often combined with the use of shell companies to further conceal the trademark filing. These submarine strategies allow companies to benefit from legal trademark protection while reducing the risk of inadvertent disclosure of information. We provide the first systematic evidence of submarine trademarks and explore both their determinants and their effectiveness in reducing the disclosure of information.

Immigrants' Contribution to Innovativeness: Evidence from a Non-Selective Immigration Country
Economic Research Working Paper No. 52

Author(s): Alexander Cuntz, Katharina Candel-Haug, Oliver Falck; Publication year: 2018

The economic consequences of migration are hotly debated and a main topic of recent political movements across Europe. We analyze Polish immigration in the context of the 2004 enlargement of the European Union and find a positive and significant spillover effect of the immigrants on the number of local inventors in German counties in 2001-2010. For causal identification, we exploit a historical episode in the Polish migration history to Germany before the fall of the Iron Curtain and construct a shift-share instrument. Our results differ from findings for high-skilled migration to the United States, which is particularly interesting as Polish immigration to Germany was not based on selection by qualification in our period of analysis.

Identifying and ranking the world's largest clusters of inventive activity
Economic Research Working Paper No. 34

Author(s): Kyle Bergquist, Carsten Fink, Julio Raffo; Publication year: 2017

This paper presents an empirical approach to identifying and ranking the world’s largest clusters of inventive activity on the basis of patent filings. Patent data offer rich information on the locality of innovative activity. Many researchers have already made use of these data to study individual clusters or selected clusters within a particular region. Our approach goes beyond existing work by identifying and ranking innovation clusters on an internationally comparable basis.

Ideas production and international knowledge spillovers: digging deeper into emerging countries
Economic Research Working Paper No. 35

Author(s): Kul B. Luintel, Mosahid Khan; Publication year: 2017

Research and development (R&D) activities of emerging countries (EMEs) have increased considerably in recent years. How important are knowledge transfers from developed countries and other emerging countries? This wide-ranging but rigorous macro-level study of 31 EMEs provides some much-needed evidence.

Measuring the income to intangibles in goods production: a global value chain approach
Economic Research Working Paper No. 36

Author(s): Wen Chen, Reitze Gouma, Bart Los, Marcel P. Timmer; Publication year: 2017

Today’s production processes are fragmented across countries and industries. Intangibles play an important role, but their measurement is elusive. This paper proposes a new empirical framework to measure factor incomes in production that spans industries and countries.

A missing link in the analysis of global value chains: cross-border flows of intangible assets, taxation and related measurement implications
Economic Research Working Paper No. 37

Author(s): Thomas S. Neubig, Sacha Wunsch-Vincent; Publication year: 2017

Understanding cross-border flows of disembodied knowledge, often associated with intellectual property (IP), is essential to analyzing how modern economies operate. This paper documents how available data to document these IP flows are distorted by various factors, including tax planning by multinational enterprises. It finds that tax-induced mismeasurement could be more than 35%, and greater for individual countries particularly high-tax-rate countries.

Intangible assets and transactions within multinational enterprises: implications for national economic accounts
Economic Research Working Paper No. 38

Author(s): Dylan G. Rassier; Publication year: 2017

Transactions involving intangible assets within multinational enterprises impose challenges for national economic accountants. In light of the challenges, recent research at the United States Bureau of Economic Analysis aims to identify areas for improving the treatment of multinational enterprises in national economic accounts. This paper summarizes the work and demonstrates implications for gross domestic product – the most widely cited measure in national economic accounts – of the United States.

The powerful role of intangibles in the coffee value chain
Economic Research Working Paper No. 39

Author(s): Luis F. Samper, Daniele Giovannucci, Luciana Marques Vieira; Publication year: 2017

The paper describes: a) the coffee industry and its GVC structure; b) the role that intangible assets play in value creation from both the supply and demand perspective; and c) the current and potential role of intellectual property tools in creating and retaining value, as well as providing economic upgrade options.

Understanding the dynamics of global value chains for solar photovoltaic technologies
Economic Research Working Paper No. 40

Author(s): Maria Carvalho, Antoine Dechezleprêtre, Matthieu Glachant; Publication year: 2017

China dominates the global solar photovoltaic (PV) value chain, while 15 years ago the demand and supply were located in few Western economies. In this process, the PV industry has seen a booming demand, drastic price decreases along the supply chain, and fierce competition among surviving companies. This paper seeks to understand how this spatial shift has occurred and its drivers, with a specific focus on the role of intangible assets and intellectual property.

Intangible assets and value capture in global value chains: the smartphone industry
Economic Research Working Paper No. 41

Author(s): Jason Dedrick, Kenneth L. Kraemer; Publication year: 2017

This report uses data on individual smart phones as well as industry data to identify which smartphone firms capture the most value. It finds that Apple captures most of the industry profits, thanks to its high prices, large profit margins and the volume of iPhone sales worldwide. Apple’s success is explained as a result of its ability to develop its own intellectual property (IP) and take advantage of IP created by suppliers through a strategy of selling only a few models at high prices compared to competitors.

Measuring Creativity: Learning from Innovation Measurement
Economic Research Working Paper No. 31

Author(s): Intan Hamdan-Livramento, Julio Raffo, Stéphane Lhuillery; Publication year: 2016

There is a growing interest in broadening the measurement scope of innovation and considering “creative” activities, meaning that the usual indicators of innovation satisfy neither scholars nor policy makers. Conceptually, there is not much difference between innovative and creative activity: but to what extent are current measures that capture innovation relevant for creativity? Can the new measures for creativity benefit from the experience accumulated through R&D and innovation? Our article provides insights and lessons learned from using measures of innovative activities for scholars who are interested in capturing creative activities. We underscore the difficulties faced when measuring innovation and draw some parallels of these difficulties with the efforts undertaken to measure creativity.

R&D, Scale Effects and Spillovers: New Insights from Emerging Countries
Economic Research Working Paper No. 32

Author(s): Kul B. Luintel, Mosahid Khan; Publication year: 2016

There has been a concomitant rise in R&D and the rate of economic growth in emerging countries. Analyzing a panel of 31 emerging countries, we find convincing evidence of scale effects which make government policies potent for long-run growth. This contrasts sharply with the well-known findings of Jones (1995a). Innovations show increasing returns to knowledge stock, implying that the diminishing returns assumed by some semi-endogenous growth models might not be generalized. International R&D spillovers raise the innovation bar. The observed growth rates of emerging economies appear in transition therefore their growth rates may recede with the passage of time.

Identifying the gender of PCT inventors
Economic Research Working Paper No. 33

Author(s): World Intellectual Property Organization, Gema Lax Martínez, Julio Raffo, Kaori Saito; Publication year: 2016

This paper analyzes the gender of inventors in international patent applications. We compile a worldwide gender-name dictionary, which includes 6.2 million names for 182 different countries to disambiguate the gender of PCT inventors. Our results suggest that there is a gender imbalance in PCT applications, but the proportion of women inventors is improving over time. We also find that the rates of women participation differ substantially across countries, technological fields and sectors.

Sources of Biopharmaceutical Innovation: An Assessment of Intellectual Property
Economic Research Working Paper No. 24

Author(s): Michael S. Kinch, Julio Raffo; Publication year: 2015

An analysis of new, FDA-approved molecular entities reveals dynamism in terms of new innovation. An assessment of the first patent for each drug reveals that the pharmaceutical industry, particularly large, established companies in North America, tend to dominate the field. Whereas inventors continue to found biotechnology companies at a steady rate, recent trends suggest these inventors more often come from the private sector.

Breakthrough innovations in aircraft and the intellectual property system, 1900-1975
Economic Research Working Paper No. 25

Author(s): David C. Mowery; Publication year: 2015

Modern commercial aircraft are complex products that incorporate innovations in technologies ranging from advanced materials to software and electronics. Although commercial aircraft assuredly qualify as a transformative innovation, in fact today’s commercial aircraft are the result of a process of incremental innovation and improvement that dates back more than a century. A great many of these improvements and incremental innovations originated from government-supported R&D programs sponsored by the military services or government research laboratories. The adoption of commercial-aircraft innovations within many industrial economies, including the United States, also has been influenced by government regulation of air transportation. This paper provides a historical characterization of the innovation and record of technical progress in US commercial aircraft during the 1900-1975 period. It identifies the sources of support for innovation and technological adoption, and examines the origins and impacts of “breakthrough innovations” on the overall evolution of the global commercial aircraft industry. The paper also assesses the role of patents in these important innovations.

Intellectual property rights and pharmaceuticals: The case of antibiotics
Economic Research Working Paper No. 26

Author(s): Bhaven N. Sampat; Publication year: 2015

The development and diffusion of antibiotics contributed to large improvements in human health and living standards. The antibiotic revolution also spawned the modern pharmaceutical industry. This paper reviews the development of the early antibiotics, and the roles of intellectual property rights (in particular, patents) in their development and diffusion.

Breakthrough technologies – Semiconductor, innovation and intellectual property
Economic Research Working Paper No. 27

Author(s): Francesca Guadagno, Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, Thomas Hoeren; Publication year: 2015

Semiconductor technology is at the origin of today’s digital economy. Its contribution to innovation, productivity and economic growth in the past four decades has been extensive. This paper analyzes how this breakthrough technology came about, how it diffused, and what role intellectual property played historically.

3D printing and the intellectual property system
Economic Research Working Paper No. 28

Author(s): Stefan Bechtold; Publication year: 2015

Three-dimensional (3D) printing – or “additive manufacturing” – technologies differ from traditional molding and casting manufacturing processes in that they build 3D objects by successively creating layers of material on top of each other. Rooted in manufacturing research of the 1980s, 3D printing has evolved into a broad set of technologies that could fundamentally alter production processes in a wide set of technology areas. This report investigates, from the perspective of an intellectual property scholar, how 3D printing technology has developed over the last few decades, how intellectual property rights have shaped this breakthrough innovation and how 3D printing technologies could challenge the intellectual property rights system in the future.

Economic growth and breakthrough innovations: A case study of nanotechnology
Economic Research Working Paper No. 29

Author(s): Lisa Larrimore Ouellette; Publication year: 2015

This paper examines the role of intellectual property and other innovation incentives in the development of one field of breakthrough innovation: nanotechnology. Because nanotechnology is an enabling technology across a wide range of fields, the nanotechnology innovation ecosystem appears to be a microcosm of the global innovation ecosystem. Part I describes the nature of nanotechnology and its economic contribution, Part II explores the nanotechnology innovation ecosystem, and Part III focuses on the role of IP systems in the development of nanotechnology.

Breakthrough technologies – Robotics, innovation and intellectual property
Economic Research Working Paper No. 30

Author(s): C. Andrew Keisner, Julio Raffo, Sacha Wunsch-Vincent; Publication year: 2015

Robotics technology and the increasing sophistication of artificial intelligence are breakthrough innovations with significant growth prospects and the potential to disrupt existing economic and social facets of everyday life. Few studies have analyzed the developments of robotics innovation. This paper closes this gap by analyzing how innovation in robotics is taking place, how it diffuses, and what role intellectual property plays.

Brands as Productive Assets: Concepts, Measurement, and Global Trends
Economic Research Working Paper No. 13

Author(s): Carol A. Corrado, Janet X. Hao; Publication year: 2014

The paper looks at brands from an economic point of view. It defines concepts; analyzes the conditions under which brands are long-lived productive assets and contribute to economic growth; and reviews the measurement of investment in brands. It finds that a productive role for brands is consistent with assumptions used in the economic analysis of innovation. Finally it offers an analysis of economic development that suggests branding rises with growth.

An "Algorithmic Links with Probabilities" Concordance for Trademarks For Disaggregated Analysis of Trademark and Economic Data
Economic Research Working Paper No. 14

Author(s): Travis J. Lybbert, Nikolas J. Zolas, Prantik Bhattacharyya; Publication year: 2014

The authors propose an ‘Algorithmic Links with Probabilities’ (ALP) approach to match Trademarks (TMs) data to economic data and enable these data to speak to each other. Specifically, they construct a NICE Class Level concordance that maps TM data into trade and industry categories forward and backward. This concordance allows researchers to analyze differences in TM usage across both economic and TM sectors. In this paper, the authors apply this ALP concordance for TMs to characterize patterns in TM applications across countries, industries, income levels and more. They also use the concordance to investigate some of the key determinants of international technology transfer by comparing bilateral TM applications and bilateral patent applications.

Diaspora Networks, Knowledge Flows and Brain Drain
Economic Research Working Paper No. 15

Author(s): Ajay Agrawal; Publication year: 2014

The paper summarizes key findings from the literature on how distance, relationships and ethnic ties influence knowledge flows, and describes a model that relates emigration and the diaspora to knowledge flows. It recaps a key study that reports evidence of a link from the diaspora and knowledge flows to home country manufacturing productivity. The study summarizes the ways in which intellectual property (IP) protection may influence knowledge flow patterns through incentives (market for ideas) and disincentives (anticommons). Finally, it speculates on how diaspora knowledge flows and IP may alleviate developing country low-productivity equilibria (“poverty traps”) caused by an underinvestment in specialized human capital.

U.S. High-Skilled Immigration, Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Empirical Approaches and Evidence
Economic Research Working Paper No. 16

Author(s): William R. Kerr; Publication year: 2014

High-skilled immigrants are a very important component of U.S. innovation and entrepreneurship. Studies regarding the impact of immigrants on natives tend to find limited consequences in the short-run, while the results in the long-run are more varied and much less certain. Immigrants in the United States aid business and technology exchanges with their home countries, but the overall effect that the migration has on the home country remains unclear. Little is known about return migration of workers engaged in innovation and entrepreneurship, except that it is rapidly growing in importance.

Inventor Data for Research on Migration and Innovation: A Survey and a Pilot
Economic Research Working Paper No. 17

Author(s): Stefano Breschi, Francesco Lissoni, Gianluca Tarasconi; Publication year: 2014

This paper discusses the existing literature on migration and innovation, with special emphasis on empirical studies based on patent and inventor data. Other sources of micro-data are examined, too, for comparative purposes. A pilot database, based on patent filings at the European Patent Office is presented. It contains information on individual inventors, including their country of residence and of origin. Preliminary evidence suggests that immigrant inventors contribute to innovation not only in the United States, but also in selected European countries, where they often rank among the most productive individuals.

The Egyptian Information Technology Sector and the Role of Intellectual Property: Economic Assessment and Recommendations
Economic Research Working Paper No. 18

Author(s): Knut Blind, Tim Pohlmann, Florian Ramel, Sacha Wunsch-Vincent; Publication year: 2014

This paper discusses the state of innovation in the Egyptian information technology sector (IT) and seeks to identify the current and potential role of intellectual property (IP) for this sector as well as the links between IP and innovation and foreign direct investment. The paper proposes IP-related policies which could contribute to promoting domestic innovation.

The Emergence of An Educational Tool Industry: Opportunities and Challenges for Innovation in Education
Economic Research Working Paper No. 19

Author(s): Dominique Foray, Julio Raffo; Publication year: 2014

This paper describes the emergence of a population of firms specialized in developing and commercializing educational tools and instructional technologies, and discusses whether this trend can be seen as part of the solution to the innovation deficit and cost disease problems in this sector.

International Patenting Strategies of Chinese Residents: An Analysis of Foreign-Oriented Patent Families
Economic Research Working Paper No. 20

Author(s): Mila Kashcheeva, Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, Hao Zhou; Publication year: 2014

This paper analyzes Chinese patenting abroad by using WIPO’s foreign-oriented patent family dataset and a respective enterprise questionnaire. It finds that by the turn of the century China emerged as major actor in terms of international patenting. While this is changing rapidly, the share of Chinese patents which get filed abroad is still a fraction of total patents filed at home and most patents still also only target one foreign IP office. Chinese foreign-oriented patent families are concentrated in a few technology fields, and a few Chinese firms are responsible for a large share of total Chinese patents filed abroad.

Defining and Measuring the “Market for Brands”: Are Emerging Economies Catching Up?
Economic Research Working Paper No. 21

Author(s): Carl Benedikt Frey, Atif Ansar, Sacha Wunsch-Vincent; Publication year: 2014

Markets for brands, as defined in this paper, play an important but underappreciated economic role in today’s global economy. The ability to use Market for Brands allows companies to diversify their business; access competences; and generate new revenues without substantial investments. This paper defines and provides a taxonomy for different brand markets then analyzes the economic rationale of such markets. It also assesses the relative importance of the different brand-related transaction types in developed and emerging economies alike.

Trademarks Squatters: Evidence from Chile
Economic Research Working Paper No. 22

Author(s): Carsten Fink, Christian Helmers, Carlos Ponce; Publication year: 2014

This paper explores the phenomenon of “trademark squatting” – a situation in which someone other than the original brand owner obtains a trademark on a brand. The authors develop a model that shows how squatting results from market uncertainty that leads brand owners to rationally forgo registering trademarks, creating opportunities for squatting. They create an algorithm to identify squatters in the Chilean trademark register and show empirically that squatting is a persistent and systematic phenomenon. Using data on trademark oppositions, the authors find that squatting leads brand owners that have been exposed to squatting to “over-protect” their brands by registering disproportionately many trademarks and covering classes other than those directly related to their products and services. Trademark squatting, therefore, creates a strategic, albeit excessive, response by brand owners which inflates trademark filings.

The Use of Intellectual Property in Brazil
Economic Research Working Paper No. 23

Author(s): Vivian Barcelos, Marina Filgueiras Jorge, Bruno Le Feuvre, Felipe Lopes, Sergio Medeiros Paulino de Carvalho, Vera Pinheiro, Julio Raffo, Leonardo Ribeiro; Publication year: 2014

This study describes patterns and trends of intellectual property use in Brazil, drawing on a new statistical database (BADEPI).

What Makes Companies Pursue an Open Science Strategy?
Economic Research Working Paper No. 6

Author(s): Markus Simeth, Julio Raffo; Publication year: 2013

This paper explores the motivations of firms that disclose research outcomes in a scientific format. Besides considering an internal firm dimension, the authors focus particularly on knowledge sourcing from academic institutions and the appropriability regime using a cost-benefit framework. The analysis provides evidence that the access to important scientific knowledge imposes the adoption of academic disclosure principles, whereas the mere existence of collaborative links with academic institutions is not a strong predictor. Furthermore, the results suggest that overall industry conditions are influential in shaping the cost-benefit rationale of firms with respect to scientific disclosure.

How Does Geographical Mobility of Inventors Influence Network Formation?
Economic Research Working Paper No. 7

Author(s): Ernest Miguelez; Publication year: 2013

The goal of this paper is to assess the influence of spatial mobility of knowledge workers on the formation of ties of scientific and industrial collaboration across European regions. Co-location has been traditionally invoked to ease formal collaboration between individuals and firms, since tie formation costs increase with physical distance between partners. In some instances, highly-skilled actors might become mobile and bridge regional networks across separate locations. This paper estimates a fixed effects logit model to ascertain precisely whether there exists a ‘previous co-location premium’ in the formation of networks across European regions.

Measuring the International Mobility of Inventors: A New Database
Economic Research Working Paper No.8

Author(s): Carsten Fink, Ernest Miguelez; Publication year: 2013

This paper has two objectives. First, it describes a new database mapping migratory patterns of inventors, extracted from information included in patent applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty. It explains in detail the information contained in the database and discusses the usefulness and reliability of the underlying data. Second, the paper provides a descriptive overview of inventor migration patterns, based on the information contained in the newly constructed database.

The Economics of Copyright and the Internet: Moving to an Empirical Assessment Relevant in the Digital Era
Economic Research Working Paper No. 9

Author(s): Sacha Wunsch-Vincent; Publication year: 2013

Technology and the Internet have triggered important changes to how creative works are created and accessed, and how creators and copyright-based industries generate their revenues. The authors reassess the economics of copyright in the light of these changes. After providing an introduction to the economics of copyright, they analyze the changes to the baseline copyright model triggered by the new technological landscape. Then, they assess the empirical economic work on copyright so far, and suggest future avenues of research and related data needs.

The Informal Economy, Innovation and Intellectual Property: Concepts, Metrics and Policy Considerations
Economic Research Working Paper No. 10

Author(s): Jeremy de Beer, Kun Fu, Sacha Wunsch-Vincent; Publication year: 2013

The authors connect concepts, definitions and data regarding the informal economy, innovation, and intellectual property in order to establish a framework for further qualitative and quantitative research and the improvement of public policies in respect of these issues.

The Use of Intellectual Property in Chile
Economic Research Working paper 11

Author(s): María José Abud, Carsten Fink, Bronwyn Hall, Christian Helmers; Publication year: 2013

This study describes patterns and trends of intellectual property (IP) use in Chile, drawing on a new database containing all patent, trademark, utility model, and design filings received by the Chilean IP office over the period 1991-2010. Among other things, the study offers insights into the drivers of filing growth, the origin of filings, the distribution of applicants, the importance of different applicant types, the share of filings by different economic sectors, the relevance of IP bundles, and the patenting behavior of Chilean applicants overseas.

Exploring the Worldwide Patent Surge
Economic Research Working Paper No. 12

Author(s): Carsten Fink, Mosahid Khan, Hao Zhou; Publication year: 2013

This paper provides an analysis of global patenting trends using the most comprehensive data currently available. Among other things, it finds that subsequent patent filings – additional filings of the same invention, mostly in additional countries – contributed considerably to the growth in filings worldwide, pointing to globalization as one important driver of filing growth. However, no single factor can fully explain the marked increase in the use of the patent system.

Getting Patents and Economic Data to Speak to Each Other: An “Algorithmic Links with Probabilities” Approach for Joint Analyses of Patenting and Economic Activity
Economic Research Working Paper No. 5

Author(s): Travis J. Lybbert, Nikolas J. Zolas; Publication year: 2012

In this paper, the authors describe and explore a new algorithmic approach to constructing concordances between the International Patent Classification (IPC) system and industry classification systems that organize economic data. This ‘Algorithmic Links with Probabilities’ (ALP) approach incorporates text analysis software and keyword extraction programs and applies them to a comprehensive patent dataset. The authors conclude with a discussion on some of the possible applications of the concordance and provide a sample analysis that uses their preferred ALP concordance to analyze international patent flows based on trade patterns.

How Robust is the R&D - Productivity Relationship? Evidence from OECD Countries
Economic Research Working Paper No. 1

Author(s): Mosahid Khan, Kul B. Luintel, Konstantinos Theodoris; Publication year: 2011

The authors examine the robustness of research and development (R&D) and productivity relationship in a panel of 16 OECD countries. They control for fifteen productivity determinants predicted by different theoretical models. R&D and human capital emerge robust in all specifications making them universal drivers of productivity across nations. Most other determinants are also significant. Productivity relationships are heterogonous across countries depending on their accumulated stocks of knowledge and human capital.

Basic, Applied and Experimental Knowledge and Productivity: Further Evidence
Economic Research Working Paper No. 2

Author(s): Mosahid Khan, Kul B. Luintel; Publication year: 2011

Analyzing a novel dataset, the authors find significantly positive effects of basic, and applied and experimental knowledge stocks on domestic output and productivity for a panel of 10 OECD countries. This updates the work of, among others, Mansfield (1980), Griliches (1986) and Adams (1990), at an international setting.

Disembodied Knowledge Flows in the World Economy
Economic Research Working Paper No. 3

Author(s): Suma Athreye, Yong Yang; Publication year: 2011

The authors outline the main trends in the growth of disembodied technology trade vis-a-vis international licensing and the trade in research and development and technical services. They show that there is considerable heterogeneity across countries in the form of technology trade that countries specialize in and also suggest these are related to underlying appropriability conditions and intellectual property rights regimes.

The State of Patenting at Research Institutions in Developing Countries: Policy Approaches and Practices
Economic Research Working Paper No. 4

Author(s): Pluvia Zuniga; Publication year: 2011

This study discusses the opportunities and challenges offered by patents to foster technology transfer from government funded research institutions in developing countries. It presents a review of policy frameworks and recent policy changes aimed to foster academic patenting and technology transfer in low- and middle-income countries. It then analyzes patenting activities by universities and public research organizations and compares these trends with respect to high-income countries. This analysis is complemented with an assessment of the current state of patenting and technology commercialization practices in a selected group of technology transfer offices.