This paper uses a large language model to develop an ex-ante measure of the commercial potential of scientific findings. In addition to validating the measure against the typical holdout sample, we validate it externally against 1.) the progression of scientific findings through a major...

We develop measures of labor-saving and labor-augmenting technology exposure using textual analysis of patents and job tasks. Using US administrative data, we show that both measures negatively predict earnings growth of individual incumbent workers. While labor-saving technologies predict...

In December 2023, the Biden-Harris Administration released a proposed framework for exercising government "march-in" rights on high-priced taxpayer-funded drugs. While both proponents and critics of the new rules view them as having broad scope, march-in rights can be exercised only on patents...

It is more than 25 years since the authors of the Yale and Carnegie surveys studied how firms seek to protect the rents from innovation. In this paper, we revisit that question using a nationally representative sample of firms over the period 2008-2015, with the goal of updating and extending a...

This paper introduces a newly digitized, open-access version of the Food and Drug Administration's "Orange Book"--a linkage between approved small-molecule drugs and the patents that protect them. The Orange Book also reports any applicable regulatory exclusivity that prevents competitive entry....

We use the U.S. patent data merged with firm-level datasets to establish new facts about the role of mega firms in generating "novel patents"--innovations that introduce new combinations of technology components for the first time. While the importance of mega firms in novel patents had been...

This paper contributes to the literature on innovation policies and institutional theory on conditions for effective institutional changes. The "three rights" reform of 26 universities and the mixed ownership reform of Southwest Jiaotong University are important explorations made by China in...

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...