Working Paper: NBER ID: w2083
Authors: Zvi Griliches; Ariel Pakes; Bronwyn H. Hall
Abstract: This paper summarizes a number of studies which use patent data to examine different aspects of technological change. It describes our firm level data set construction effort; reports on the relationship between RLD expenditures and the level of patenting; analyzes the relationship between patents, R&D, and tire stock market value of firms; reports on the estimation of the value of patent rights based on European patent renewal data; and describes the use of patent data to estimate the importance of R&D spillovers. It concludes that patent data represent a valuable resource for the analysis of technological change. They can be used to study longer-run interfirm differences in inventive activity and as a substitute for R&D data where they are not available in the desired detail. It is possible also to use a firm's distribution of patenting by field to infer its position in "technological space" and use it in turn to study how R&D spills over from one firm to another. Moreover, patent renewal data, which are also becoming available in the U.S., allow one to construct more relevant "quality weighted" inventive "output" measures .
Keywords: Patents; R&D; Technological Change; Market Value
JEL Codes: O31; O32
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| number of patents filed (O34) | firm performance (L25) |
| patents (O34) | inventive activity (O31) |
| R&D spillovers (O36) | inventive output of others (O36) |
| R&D expenditures (O32) | number of patents filed (O34) |
| patent applications (O34) | stock market values (G10) |