This paper examines the effect of the German co-determination law of 1976 (MitbestG) on the innovative activity of German firms. Co-determination applies to firms with 2000 employees or more. Data from 1971-1976 and 1981-1990 on 148 firms are used to compare the number of patents granted to...

Our data from 351 innovating firms for the years 2001–2012 generally suggest that patentable ideas are strongly linked to the mobility of individual inventors, or that the knowledge flows transmitted are sticky inventor-specific. In other words, the larger the knowledge pool of an inventor...

In the last decades, innovation activity has been defined by an increasing complexity and a faster pace of the underlying technological change. Accordingly, several studies have shown that competitive systems of innovation benefit from being able to build upon a wide but integrated spectrum of...

The literature on patent buyouts has focused on single-economy settings, where buyouts are welfare improving relative to patents unless there are frictions such as imperfect information or commitment problems. We expand the analysis to a world with two heterogeneous countries featuring different...

In 2010 China was the world's fourth largest filer of patent applications. This followed a decade of unprecedented increases in investment in skills and Research and Development. If current trends continue China could rank first in the very near future. We provide evidence that the growth in...

Deutsche und ausländische Unternehmen haben ihre Forschungsund Entwicklungsinvestitionen in Deutschland in den letzten Jahren beständig gesteigert. Mit gut 45 Milliarden Euro lagen die Aufwendungen im Jahr 2009 um ein Drittel über dem Niveau von 2001. Während die ausländischen Unternehmen...

This paper examines Total Factor Productivity (TFP) and knowledge flows, using international patent data. The result is a measure of technology that isolates sources of innovation and their contributions to domestic TFP. Within-industry innovation enhances domestic productivity, and domestic...

In recent years, German and foreign companies have consistently increased their investment in Research and Development in Germany. In 2009, investment was over 45 billion euros which was a third higher than in 2001. While foreign companies have significantly expanded their Research and...

The development of inventor networks is characterized by the addition of a significant number of new inventors, while a considerable number of incumbent inventors discontinue. We estimate the persistence of knowledge in regional inventor networks using alternative assumptions about knowledge...

In this work, we develop and apply a methodology to estimate technology-specific R&D investments at firm level and then use these to test some arguments that have become central in the innovation literature. In particular, we first combine R&D investments with patent data of the world top R&D...