Technical progress increasingly relies on the use of scientific knowledge. But if much of this knowledge is in the public domain, can it be a source of private value? We find that average private returns to using public science are small, especially in crowded technical fields, consistent with...

Do large firms produce more valuable inventions, and if so, why? After confirming that large firms indeed produce more valuable inventions, we consider two possible sources: a superior ability to invent, or a superior ability to extract value from their inventions. We develop a simple model that...