The growth effects of intellectual property right (IPR) protection are examined in a quality-ladder model of endogenous growth. Stronger IPR protection, which reduces the probability of imitation, raises the reward for innovation. However, stronger protection reduces the number of competitive...

This paper analyzes the effects of different sources of R&D funding and patent office attributes on the patenting process. Another important contribution is modeling the effect of a random delay in the ‘pendency’ time as a stochastic process and quantifying its effect on patenting. The...

The rate of patenting in the U.S. has exploded in the last half of the 1990s. It is widely believed that the increase in patent grants is at least partly a result of the apparent decline in examination standards. There has been little exploration, however, of the theoretical prediction that a...

Software is a potentially excludable public good. It is possible, at some cost, to exclude non-paying users from its consumption by using copyright law or technological restraints. Licensing the software under proprietary license terms makes of it a private good, licensing it under the BSD does...

This paper offers a theoretical treatment of information disclosure through patenting. We consider a signaling model in which two domestic firms disclose their competencies to a foreign firm. Conditions are discussed under which separating and pooling equilibria occur, together with a...

The existing literature on the sources and nature of productivity growth during the early industrialization stages of U.S. has identified the combination of intellectual property rights (IPRs) with a large middle class and broad participation in markets as explanations for the extraordinary...

The economics of information goods suggest the need for institutional intervention to address the problem of revenue extraction from investments in resources characterized by high fixed costs of production and low marginal costs of reproduction and distribution. Solutions to the appropriation...

This paper examines whether patenting increases the private incentives to innovate in manufacturing. To study this issue, we build a model in which the value of an innovation depends both on the type of innovation implemented (product, process) and on the existence of a patent protection or not....

It is well known from nonlinear aggregation theory that distributions play a central role in the determination of aggregate relations. This paper establishes a bridge between the aggregation and the inequality and growth literature by applying a log-linear aggregation method to a simple...

The purpose of this paper is to reassess the standard Solow growth model,using a dynamic panel data approach. A new methodology is chosen to deal with this problem. First, unit root tests for individual country time series were run. Second, panel data unit root and cointegration tests were...