This empirical analysis focuses on the impact of the economic cycle on firms' ability to sustain cooperative behavior within an explicit cartel agreement that existed during the interwar period in the Northern French coalfields. The basic model is based on Bresnahan (1982) and adapted to the...

The goal of this paper is to lay out a methodology and corresponding computer algorithms, that allow us to extract the detailed data on inventors contained in patents, and harness it for economic research. Patent data has long been used in empirical research in economics, and yet the information...

The goal of this paper is to lay out a methodology and corresponding computer algorithms, that allow us to extract the detailed data on inventors contained in patents, and harness it for economic research. Patent data has long been used in empirical research in economics, and yet the information...

There is widespread agreement about the important role played by Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the US productivity revival and in the evolving US-EU productivity gap. In Israel, the ICT sector grew very rapidly during the 1990s and became a hotbed of innovation and...

There is widespread agreement about the important role played by Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the US productivity revival and in the evolving US-EU productivity gap. In Israel, the ICT sector grew very rapidly during the 1990s and became a hotbed of innovation and...

This paper analyzes the terrorist threat following 9/11, and explores its implications for defense R&D. First, it reviews the composition of defense R&D since 9/11: big weapon systems still command 30% of defense R&D spending (legacy of the Cold War), vis-a-vis just about 13% for intelligence...

This paper asks the question: Can we see evidence of General Purpose Technologies in patent data? Using data on three million US patents granted between 1967 and 1999, and their citations received between 1975 and 2002, we construct a number of measures of GPTs, including generality, number of...