Many standard setting organizations (SSOs) require participants to disclose patents that might be infringed by implementing a proposed standard, and commit to license their “essential” patents on terms that are at least fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND). Data from these SSO...

Representation of women and minorities in a “selectorate” — the group that chooses an organization’s leaders — is a key mechanism for promoting diversity. We show that representation, on its own, is not sufficient for selecting gender diversity: a supportive organizational culture is...

We use a change in Canadian tax law to examine how small private firms respond to the R&D tax credit. Our estimates imply an R&D user-cost elasticity above unity. Contract R&D expenditures are more elastic than the R&D wage bill. Firms that perform contract research or recently invested in R&D...

We study the matching of patent applications to examiners at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Using test statistics originally developed to identify industry agglomeration, we find strong evidence that examiners specialize in particular technologies, even within relatively homogeneous art...