We analyze the effect of patent thickets on entry into technology areas by firms in the UK. We present a model that describes incentives to enter technology areas characterized by varying technological opportunity, complexity of technology, and the potential for hold-up in patent thickets. We...

Liberalization and regulatory reform of telecom markets has emerged as a high profile policy issue. This paper analyzes how the multilateral system under the World Trade Organization can help developing countries in promoting their own information infrastructures. We focus on a specific ?regime?...

The liberalization of the basic telecommunications sector in Asian countries is examined in this paper with a view to identify the elements of good policy and examine how it can be promoted through multilateral negotiations. We find that despite the move away from traditional public monopolies,...

Because judges exercise discretion in how they handle and decide cases, heterogeneity across judges can affect case outcomes and, thus, preferences among litigants for particular judges. However, selection obscures the causal mechanisms that drive these preferences. We overcome this challenge by...

This paper identifies the effect of neighborhood peer groups on childhood skill acquisition using observational data. We incorporate spatial peer interaction, defined as a child's nearest geographical neighbors, into a production function of child cognitive development in Andhra Pradesh, India....

We evaluate the impact of firm-specific export subsidies on exports in Colombia. Using a two-stage Heckman selection procedure, we obtain firm-specific predicted subsidy amounts that can be explained by the characteristics that determine the firms' eligibility for the government support and its...

A large body of literature on the estimation of private returns to R&D adopts the Griliches knowledge production framework, ignoring the impact omitted spillover effects may have on consistent estimation. A separate body of literature is primarily interested in the presence and magnitude of...

This study presents new estimates of business R&D capital stocks for 22 countries at the aggregate and industry levels. At 9 percent of GDP, the EU business R&D capital stock falls short of its US and Japanese counterparts. Within the EU, R&D capital stocks are much lower in the southern and the...

A large body of literature on the estimation of private returns to R&D adopts the Griliches knowledge production framework, ignoring the impact omitted spillover eects may have on consistent estimation. A separate body of literature is primarily interested in the presence and magnitude of...

We analyze the impact of the probabilistic nature of patents on the functioning of Germany's bifurcated patent litigation system where infringement and validity of a patent are decided independently by different courts. We show that bifurcation creates situations in which a patent is held...