"Patent Activity and Technical Change"

This paper presents an aggregate production function of the generalized Fechner-Thurstone (GFT) form to analyze the impact of an important component of intellectual industrial property, namely patent activity, on technical change in the USA for the period 1947-1981. We define a technology-changer as a variable that has an impact on the elasticity of the marginal rate of technical substitution (mrts) between inputs of the GFT production function over time. Various types of US patent grant activity, specifically total, domestic, foreign, successful and unsuccessful patents, are used as instruments for the technology-changer. Using the GFT specification, the impacts of various technology-changers on the elasticity of the mrts between inputs are estimated directly. It is found that granted (or successful) patents, patents granted to foreign companies and individuals, total patent applications, and even unsuccessful patent applications, have significant impacts on the rates at which inputs are substituted for each other over time in production.

Application of several econometric techniques to a theory of demand with variable tastes

Existing theory of consumer demand does not contain a body of theorems purporting to explain the consumption behavior of individuals when their preferences are changed, either autonomously or by advertising and other forms of selling effort. In view of the importance of advertising in the modern economy, it is desirable that such a body of theorems be worked out. The objective of this study is the formulation of a theory of consumer demand with variable preferences; the governing criterion is that the theory be applicable in econometric demand analysis;The assumption that the individual consumer has only one ordinal utility function is replaced by the assumption that he has a whole family of ordinal utility functions; advertising expenditures by sellers of commodities are assumed to determine which one of these ordinal utility functions is maximized. From these assumptions are derived a number of a priori restraints on measurements defining advertising elasticities of demand. It is shown that advertising elasticities are weighted averages of elasticities of substitution between goods in consumption, the weights being measurements defining advertising elasticities of marginal utilities;Estimates of empirical advertising elasticities of demand for tobacco are presented along with estimates of the elasticity of marginal utility of tobacco with respect to advertising expenditure. The computation of these estimates serves as an example of the application of the theory to problems of econometric demand analysis

Do returns to education depend on how and whom you ask?

Returns to education remain an important parameter of interest in economic analysis. A large literature estimates these returns, often carefully addressing issues such as selection into wage employment and endogeneity in terms of completed schooling. There has been much less exploration of whether the estimates of Mincerian returns depend on how information about wage work is collected. Relying on a survey experiment in Tanzania, this paper finds that estimates of the returns to education vary by questionnaire design, but not by whether the information on employment and wages is self-reported or collected by a proxy respondent. The differences derived from questionnaire type are substantial, varying from higher returns of 5 percentage points among the most well educated men to 16 percentage points among the least well educated women. These differences are at magnitudes similar to the bias in ordinary least squares estimation, which receives considerable attention in the literature. The findings demonstrate that survey design matters in the estimation of returns to schooling and that care is needed in comparing across contexts and over time, particularly if the data are generated through different surveys

Knowledge Transfer and Accomodation Effects in Multinational Corporations: Evidence from European Subsidiaries

Foreign subsidiaries in multinational corporations (MNCs) possess knowledge that has different sources (e.g., the firm itself or various sources in the environment). How such sources influence knowledge transfer is not well understood. Drawing on the “accommodation effect” from cognitive psychology, the authors argue that accumulation of externally sourced knowledge in a subsidiary may reduce the value of transferring that subsidiary’s knowledge to other parts of the MNC. The authors develop a parsimonious model of intrafirm knowledge transfer and test its predictions against a unique data set on subsidiary knowledge development that includes the sources of subsidiary knowledge and the extent of knowledge transfer to other MNC units. The authors show that a high level of externally sourced knowledge in a subsidiary is associated with a high level of knowledge transfer from that subsidiary only if a certain tipping point of internally sourced knowledge has been surpassed. This suggests that subsidiary knowledge stocks that are balanced in terms of their origins tend to be more valuable, congruous, and fungible, and therefore more likely to be transferred to other MNC units

The Lamé Class of Lorenz Curves.

In this paper, the class of Lamé Lorenz curves is studied. This family has the advantage of modeling inequality with a single parameter. The family has a double motivation: it can be obtain from an economic model and from simple transformations of classical Lorenz curves. The underlying cumulative distribution functions have a simple closed form, and correspond to the Singh-Maddala and Dagum distributions, which are well known in the economic literature. The Lorenz order is studied and several inequality and polarization measures are obtained, including Gini, Donaldson-Weymark-Kakwani, Pietra and Wolfson indices. Some extensions of the Lamé family are obtained. Fitting and estimation methods under two different data configuration are proposed. Empirical applications with real data are given. Finally, some relationships with other curves are included.The authors thank to Ministerio de Econom a y Competitividad, project ECO2010-15455, for partial support. The second author thanks to the Ministerio de Educaci on (FPU AP-2010-4907) for partial support. We are grateful for the constructive suggestions provided by the reviewers, which improved the paper

Are waiting times for hospital admissions affected by patients' choices and mobility?

Background Waiting times for elective care have been considered a serious problem in many health care systems. A topic of particular concern has been how administrative boundaries act as barriers to efficient patient flows. In Norway, a policy combining patient's choice of hospital and removal of restriction on referrals was introduced in 2001, thereby creating a nationwide competitive referral system for elective hospital treatment. The article aims to analyse if patient choice and an increased opportunity for geographical mobility has reduced waiting times for individual elective patients. Methods A survey conducted among Norwegian somatic patients in 2004 gave information about whether the choice of hospital was made by the individual patient or by others. Survey data was then merged with administrative data on which hospital that actually performed the treatment. The administrative data also gave individual waiting time for hospital admission. Demographics, socio-economic position, and medical need were controlled for to determine the effect of choice and mobility upon waiting time. Several statistical models, including one with instrument variables for choice and mobility, were run. Results Patients who had neither chosen hospital individually nor bypassed the local hospital for other reasons faced the longest waiting times. Next were patients who individually had chosen the local hospital, followed by patients who had not made an individual choice, but had bypassed the local hospital for other reasons. Patients who had made a choice to bypass the local hospitals waited on average 11 weeks less than the first group. Conclusion The analysis indicates that a policy combining increased opportunity for hospital choice with the removal of rules restricting referrals can reduce waiting times for individual elective patients. Results were robust over different model specifications

Women, Schooling, and Marriage in Rural Philippines

Using data from the Bicol region of the Phillipines, we examine why women are more educated than men in a rural, agricultural economy in which women are significantly less likely than men to participate in the labor market. We hypothesize that educational homogamy in the marriage market and cross-productivity effects in the household allow Filipino women to reap substantial benefits from schooling regardless of whether they enter the labor market. Our estimates reveal that the return to schooling for women is approximately 20 percent in both labor and marriage markets. In comparison, men experience a 12 percent return to schooling in the labor market. By using birth order, sibship size, percent of male siblings, and parental education as instruments, we correct for a significant downward bias that is caused by the endogeneity of schooling attainment