We develop a model that incorporates salient features of growth in modern economies. We combine the expanding-variety growth model through horizontal innovations with a hierarchy of basic and applied research. The former extends the knowledge base, while the latter commercializes it. Two-way...

Recent empirical studies suggest a need for a flexible patent regime responding to industry characteristics. In practice, sector-specific modifications of patent strength already exist but lack theoretical foundation. This paper intends to make up for this neglect by scrutinizing in what...

There is considerable debate regarding the use of intellectual property rights (IPR) to spur innovation in the software industry. In this paper we focus on the choice of intellectual property right regimes and industry growth. We begin by developing a growth optimal mixture of open source and...

The most fundamental proposition about growth and competition is that there is a tradeoff between static welfare and long-term growth. This paper reconsiders this basic proposition in an increasing product variety endogenous growth model with competitive markets for 'old' innovative products and...

Recent empirical studies suggest a need for a flexible patent regime responding to industry characteristics. In practice, sector-specific modifications of patent strength already exist but lack theoretical foundation. This paper intends to make up for this neglect by scrutinizing in what...

In this paper I build a North-South model of international trade, economic growth and search-frictional unemployment in the North. Growth is driven by a process of creative destruction in the North followed by imitation in the South. I study the effects of intellectual property rights protection...

We study the interaction of customer capital and productivity through brand reallocation across firms. We develop a firm dynamics model with brands as transferable customer capital, heterogeneous firm productivity, and variable markups. We study the matching process between transferable brand...

From the viewpoint of an innovator a patent is a tradeoff between the right to exclude others from using the patented matter versus the requirement to disclose it. Given the sequential nature of many innovations, patent induced technology diffusion can spur technological progress. However,...

Previous research has expressed concerns about firms engaging less in basic research. We contribute to this debate by studying trends in the scientific publishing activities of firms located in Germany. Our results do not confirm a declining trend in raw numbers with numbers indicating that...

This paper presents a theoretical model and empirical evidence to explain the observation that a country in which the level of technology approaches the technology frontier tends to rely more on technology creation than adoption, and to invest more in basic research than in development. The...