Working Paper: NBER ID: w24638
Authors: Haris Tabakovic; Thomas G. Wollmann
Abstract: Many regulatory agency employees are hired by the firms they regulate, creating a "revolving door" between the public and private sectors. We study these transitions using detailed data from the US Patent and Trademark Office. We find that patent examiners grant significantly more patents to the firms that later hire them and that leniency extends to prospective employers. Effects are strongest in years when firms are actively hiring examiners (e.g., all else equal, our estimates are attenuated during recessions). Conditional on being granted, affected patents have broader scope, as measured by claims, and lower quality, as measured by forward citations.
Keywords: regulatory capture; patent examiners; revolving doors; intellectual property; government regulation
JEL Codes: D72; K23; L51; O34
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| examiner leniency (K40) | patent grants (O38) |
| future employment aspirations (J68) | patent grant decisions (O38) |
| examiner leniency (K40) | likelihood of being hired by the firm (M51) |
| examiner leniency (K40) | patent grants to nearby firms (O36) |
| hiring intensity (J23) | examiner leniency (K40) |
| revolving door dynamics (D73) | regulatory capture (G18) |
| patents granted by revolving door examiners (O38) | citation count (A14) |