When innovation is cumulative, patent protection on early inventions can generate holdup problems if later … complementary patents are owned by different firms. Consistent with the property rights literature, we show that shareholder … ownership overlap across firms with patent complementarities helps mitigate such holdup problems and correlates significantly …

for acquiring for the purpose of putting a patent to sleep decreases when the intellectual property law is stricter …

finance availability constraints actually spurred innovation. Finally, the economy-wide effects of greater economic freedom … and stronger patent protections were positive, while greater economic prosperity somewhat led to complacency. …