What is the Impact of Software Patent Shifts?: Evidence from Lotus v. Borland

Economists have debated the extent to which strengthening patent protection spurs or detracts from technological innovation. In this paper, we examine the reduction of software copyright protection in the Lotus v. Borland decision. If patent and copyright protections are substitutes, then weakening of one form of protection should be associated with an increasing reliance on the other. We find that the firms affected by the diminution of copyright protection disproportionately accelerated their patenting in subsequent years. But little evidence can be found for harmful effects: in fact, the increased reliance on patents is correlated with some positive outcomes for firms.

Microeconomic policy and technological change

Economic policy ; Research and development ; Microeconomics ; Technology

North-South Trade and Growth: The Role of Product Quality.

The traditional trade models, which rely on a comparative advantage based on regions’ technology or endowments, or the new trade theory, designed to explain trade between the countries at a similar level of development, fail to replicate recent evidence on world trade patterns and prices. This evidence reveals North-South specialization across products of the same industries and product groups but different quality, rather than across different industries. Furthermore, countries at a higher level of technological development have higher export prices, which shows that more advanced technology does not necessarily imply higher cost efficiency. Therefore, in order to analyze the endogenous growth mechanisms and implications of the IPR protection policy in a North-South trade set-up, this thesis develops a fully-endogenous theoretical framework based on the notion of quality vintages, which results in the North-South production and trade specialization in different quality segments of the market. The model is used to investigate the growth effects of the South opening to trade and the welfare effects of different IPR policy instruments. Finally, the last chapter abstracts from endogenous growth mechanismsQuality of products; International trade;

Optimal Investment in Research and Development Under Uncertainty

This paper explores the optimal expenditure rate that a firm should employ to develop a new technology and pursue the registration of the related patent. Our model takes into account an economic environment with indus-trial competition among firms operating in the same sector and in presence of uncertainty in knowledge accumulation. We develop a stochastic optimal control problem with random horizon, and solve it theoretically by adopting a dynamic programming approach. An extensive numerical analysis suggests that the optimal expenditure rate is a decreasing function in time and its sen-sitivity to uncertainty depends on the stage of the race. The odds for the firm to preempt the rivals non-linearly depend on the degree of competition in the market

Large Scale Deployment of Renewables for Electricity Generation

Comparisons of resource assessments suggest resource constraints are not an obstacle to the large-scale deployment of renewable energy technologies. Economic analysis identifies barriers to the adoption of renewable energy sources resulting from market structure, competition in an uneven playing field and various non-market place barriers. However, even if these barriers are removed, the problem of ‘technology lock-out’ remains. The key policy response is strategic deployment coupled with increased R&D support to accelerate the pace of improvement through market experience. The paper suggests significant contributions from various technologies, but does not assess their optimal or maximal market share

Skill-biased Technology Adoption: Evidence for the Chilean manufacturing sector

We examine the evolution of the demand for skilled workers relative to unskilled workers in the Chilean manufacturing sector following Chile’s liberalization of trade in the late 1970’s. Following such trade reforms, the standard Heckscher-Olin model predicts that a low labor-cost country like Chile should experience an increased demand for low skilled workers relative to high skilled workers. Alternatively, if trade liberalization is associated with the adoption of new technologies, and technology is skill-biased, the relative demand for skilled workers may rise. Using a newly available plant-level data set that spans the sixteen year period 1979-1995, we find that the relative demand for skilled workers rose sharply during the 1979-1986 period and then stabilized. The sharp increase in demand for skilled workers coincided with an increased propensity to adopt new technologies as measured by patent usage. Plant-level analysis of labor demand confirms a significant relationship between the relative demand for skilled workers and technology adoption as measured by patent usage and other technology indicators. Our results suggest that skill-biased technological change is a significant determinant of labor demand and wage structures in developing economies.

Technological Change and the Environment

Environmental policy discussions increasingly focus on issues related to technological change. This is partly because the environmental consequences of social activity are frequently affected by the rate and direction of technological change, and partly because environmental policy interventions can themselves create constraints and incentives that have significant effects on the path of technological progress. This paper, prepared as a chapter draft for the forthcoming Handbook of Environmental Economics (North-Holland/Elsevier Science), summarizes for environmental economists current thinking on technological change in the broader economics literature, surveys the growing economic literature on the interaction between technology and the environment, and explores the normative implications of these analyses. We begin with a brief overview of the economics of technological change, and then examine three important areas where technology and the environment intersect: the theory and empirical evidence of induced innovation and the related literature on the effects of environmental policy on the creation of new, environmentally friendly technology; the theory and empirics of environmental issues related to technology diffusion; and analyses of the comparative technological impacts of alternative environmental policy instruments. We conclude with suggestions for further research on technological change and the environment.technological change, induced innovation, environment, policy

The diffusion/adoption of innovation in the internal market

The main aim of the present study is to analyze the drivers of innovation adoption by (i) developing proper measures able to proxy for innovation adoption and internal market regulations, (ii) identifying the channels through which innovation adoption takes place and (iii) assessing the main determinants of this adoption process within the internal market. An original model is derived from the theoretical literature on innovation diffusion. Results show that the impact of the transmission channels on innovation adoption is especially important for cooperation, leaving trade and competition as apparently minor channels of innovation diffusion (and especially depending on the type of innovation adoption under examination). The overall result argues that more cooperation across firms and countries is going to be beneficial to the process of innovation adoption.The Diffusion/Adoption of Innovation in the Internal Market, Community Innovation Survey, Micro Data, Cooperation, Trade, Competition, Suriñach, Autant-Bernard, Manca, Massard, Moreno

Technological Change and the Environment

Environmental policy discussions increasingly focus on issues related to technological change. This is partly because the environmental consequences of social activity are frequently affected by the rate and direction of technological change, and partly because environmental policy interventions can themselves create constraints and incentives that have significant effects on the path of technological progress. This paper, prepared as a chapter draft for the forthcoming Handbook of Environmental Economics (North-Holland/Elsevier Science), summarizes for environmental economists current thinking on technological change in the broader economics literature, surveys the growing economic literature on the interaction between technology and the environment, and explores the normative implications of these analyses. We begin with a brief overview of the economics of technological change, and then examine three important areas where technology and the environment intersect: the theory and empirical evidence of induced innovation and the related literature on the effects of environmental policy on the creation of new, environmentally friendly technology; the theory and empirics of environmental issues related to technology diffusion; and analyses of the comparative technological impacts of alternative environmental policy instruments. We conclude with suggestions for further research on technological change and the environment.

Appropriability and Commercialization: Evidence from MIT Inventions

At least since Arrow (1962), the effects of appropriability on invention have been well studied, but there has been little analysis of the effect of appropriability on the commercialization of existing inventions. Exploiting a database of 805 attempts by private firms to commercialize inventions licensed from MIT between 1980 and 1996, we explore the influence of several appropriability mechanisms on the commercialization and termination of projects to develop products based on university inventions. We construct a theoretical model in which the licensee faces technical and market uncertainty, and anticipates that its products will be imitated. We characterize the hazards of commercialization and termination as functions of appropriability mechanisms, including patent scope and the effectiveness of patents as well as learning, lead time, and secrecy in attaining competitive advantage. The model is tested using a competing risks framework that allows for non-parametric unobserved heterogeneity and correlated risks. In our sample, patent strength and secrecy influence termination decisions, while learning, patent scope and lead time influence commercialization decisions.hazard rates, innovation, optimal stopping problem, patent scope, university licensing, termination