We find that internal finance resources at the firm-level, measured by cash flow, play a non-trivial role for the number of patent applications, even after controlling for the standard variables of a patent study. The results are based on estimating panel count-data models on a sample of 2,700...

Based on data from of 2,700 Swedish manufacturing firms, observed through the period 1997-2005, this paper shows that internal finance resources, measured by cash-flow, affect the propensity to apply for a patent as well as the number of patent applications. From a business cycle perspective,...