It is commonly asserted that innovation markets suffer from excessive intellectual property protections, which in turn stifle output. But empirical inquiries can neither confirm nor deny this assertion. Under the "agnostic" assumption that we cannot assess directly whether intellectual-property...

This short contribution updates through 2018 the author’s prior empirical study on global innovation trends as indicated by USPTO patenting data during 1965-2015. The principal trends identified previously have largely continued, with the exception of a slight universal decline in annual...

It is generally assumed that stronger intellectual property protections have adverse competitive effects by raising entry costs and shielding incumbents. This book identifies a significant range of circumstances in which stronger IP protections lower entry costs for innovators who have robust...

It is widely argued that international extension of the patent system hinders innovation and growth in developing countries by restricting access to technological inputs. I re-examine the connection between patents, innovation and development by assessing the extent to which the U.S. patent...

Intellectual property rests on a simple incentive rationale: without imitation barriers, innovators rationally decline to invest. But this blanket proposition is incompatible with markets where innovation proceeds without substantial recourse to intellectual property and imitation is widespread....

It is now widely asserted that legal regimes that enforce contractual and other limitations on labor mobility deter technological innovation. First, recent empirical studies purport to show relationships between bans on enforcing noncompete agreements, increased employee movement, and increased...

The fashion market is an anomaly: innovation is vigorous but original producers are substantially unprotected against imitation, which proliferates under an incomplete property regime consisting of strong trademark protections and weak design protections. We account for this anomaly through a...