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Value of invention, prolific inventor productivity and mobility: evidence from five countries, 1975-2002

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  • William Latham

    (Department of Economics, University of Delaware - University of Delaware)

  • Christian Le Bas

    (GATE Lyon Saint-Etienne - Groupe d'analyse et de théorie économique - CNRS : UMR5824 - Université Lumière - Lyon II - École Normale Supérieure de Lyon)

  • Dmitry Volodin

    (Department of Economics, University of Delaware - University of Delaware)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to provide new insights into (1) the determinants of the value of inventions and (2) the role that mobility plays in the behavior of prolific inventors, whom we identify based on the number of patents exceeding a threshold of productivity. We examine mobility in two dimensions: from firm to firm (inter-firm) and from one technical field to another. We exploit data on patents filed by inventors from five countries (France, the UK, Germany, the US and Japan) in the US Patent and Trademark office during the period from 1975 to 2002. From our regressions we obtain a rich set of results. In particular we show that: (1) as predicted by evolutionary theory, inventor productivity is a positive determinant of invention value, (2) inter-firm mobility is a consistently positive determinant of productivity and (3) technological mobility is a negative determinant. The last implies that the more specialized an inventor is, the higher his productivity is.

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Paper provided by HAL in its series Working Papers with number halshs-00654501.

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Date of creation: 22 Dec 2011
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Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00654501

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Keywords: prolific inventor; mobility; productivity; value of invention;

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References

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  1. Antonelli Cristiano, 2003. "Localized technological change," Dipartimento di Economia "S. Cognetti de Martiis" LEI & BRICK - Laboratorio di economia dell'innovazione "Franco Momigliano", Bureau of Research in Innovation, Complexity and Knowledge, Collegio Carlo 200305, University of Turin.
  2. Claudine Gay & William Latham & Christian Le Bas, 2008. "Collective Knowledge, Prolific Inventors And The Value Of Inventions: An Empirical Study Of French, German And British Patents In The Us, 1975-1999," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 17(1-2), pages 5-22.
  3. Ajay Agrawal & Iain Cockburn & John McHale, 2003. "Gone But Not Forgotten: Labor Flows, Knowledge Spillovers, and Enduring Social Capital," NBER Working Papers 9950, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Lynne G. Zucker & Michael R. Darby & Maximo Torero, 1997. "Labor Mobility from Academe to Commerce," NBER Working Papers 6050, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  5. Hoisl, Karin, 2007. "Tracing mobile inventors--The causality between inventor mobility and inventor productivity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 619-636, June.
  6. Hoisl, Karin, 2006. "Does Mobility Increase the Productivity of Inventors?," Discussion Papers in Business Administration 2023, University of Munich, Munich School of Management.
  7. William Latham & Christian Le Bas, 2010. "Causes, Consequences and Dynamics of 'Complex' Distributions of Technological Activities: The Case of Prolific Inventors," Working Papers 10-02, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.
  8. William Latham & Dmitry Volodin & Christian Le Bas & Riad Bouklia Hassane, 2011. "Interregional mobility, productivity and the value of patents for prolific inventors in France, Germany and the U.K," Working Papers 11-06, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.
  9. Harhoff, Dietmar & Hoisl, Karin, 2007. "Institutionalized incentives for ingenuity--Patent value and the German Employees' Inventions Act," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 1143-1162, October.
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Cited by:
  1. William Latham & Christian Le Bas & Dmitry Volodin, 2012. "Mobility, Productivity and Patent Value for Asian Prolific Inventors: China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, 1975 – 2010," Working Papers 1227, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique (GATE), Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Université Lyon 2, Ecole Normale Supérieure.

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