We present a model of industry standard setting with two-sided asymmetric information about the existence of intellectual property. We provide an equilibrium analysis of (a) firms' incentives to communicate ideas for improvements of an industry standard, and (b) firms' decisions to disclose the...

This paper measures the technological significance of voluntary standard setting organizations (SSOs) by examining citations to patents disclosed in the standard setting process. We find that SSO patents are cited far more frequently than a set of control patents, and that SSO patents receive...

This paper develops a simple model that links the adoption of a productivity-enhancing technology to increased vertical integration and a less skilled workforce. We test the model’s key prediction using novel micro data on vehicle ownership patterns from the Economic Census during a period...