IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/pubeco/v183y2020ics0047272720300049.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Procrastination at the Patent Office?

Author

Listed:
  • Frakes, Michael D.
  • Wasserman, Melissa F.

Abstract

Pointing to a limited set of statistics suggesting that examiners turn in much of their work product at the end of quota periods, the Commerce Department has recently raised concerns over examiner procrastination and its consequences for examination quality. End-loading of review completions alone, however, is not dispositive evidence of procrastination. In this paper, we confirm that examiners complete a substantial percentage of reviews at the end of both bi-weekly and quarterly quotas and then proceed to test for additional markers that may separate a procrastination explanation for these findings from a range of alternative theories. Among other tests explored in this regard, we predict and find evidence of an immediate spike in end-loading upon the onset of examiner telecommuting, a change in work environments that likely exacerbates self-control problems. Our findings support a procrastination interpretation for at least some portion of the observed end-loading of reviews, with our outcomes analysis suggesting that the predominant consequence of this behavior for examination quality is an increase in examination durations.

Suggested Citation

  • Frakes, Michael D. & Wasserman, Melissa F., 2020. "Procrastination at the Patent Office?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:183:y:2020:i:c:s0047272720300049
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104140
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272720300049
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104140?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul Oyer, 1998. "Fiscal Year Ends and Nonlinear Incentive Contracts: The Effect on Business Seasonality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(1), pages 149-185.
    2. Matthew Rabin & Ted O'Donoghue, 1999. "Doing It Now or Later," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 103-124, March.
    3. Nicholas Bloom & James Liang & John Roberts & Zhichun Jenny Ying, 2015. "Does Working from Home Work? Evidence from a Chinese Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(1), pages 165-218.
    4. David Laibson & Andrea Repetto & Jeremy Tobacman, 2005. "Estimating Discount Functions with Consumption Choices over the Lifecycle," Levine's Bibliography 784828000000000643, UCLA Department of Economics.
    5. Alexandre Mas & Amanda Pallais, 2017. "Valuing Alternative Work Arrangements," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(12), pages 3722-3759, December.
    6. Pascal Courty & Gerald Marschke, 2004. "An Empirical Investigation of Gaming Responses to Explicit Performance Incentives," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(1), pages 23-56, January.
    7. Lei, Zhen & Wright, Brian D., 2017. "Why weak patents? Testing the examiner ignorance hypothesis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 43-56.
    8. Jonathan Gruber & Botond Köszegi, 2001. "Is Addiction "Rational"? Theory and Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1261-1303.
    9. Supreet Kaur & Michael Kremer & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2015. "Self-Control at Work," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(6), pages 1227-1277.
    10. Alexander L. Brown & Zhikang Eric Chua & Colin F. Camerer, 2009. "Learning and Visceral Temptation in Dynamic Saving Experiments," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(1), pages 197-231.
    11. Mark A. Lemley & Bhaven Sampat, 2012. "Examiner Characteristics and Patent Office Outcomes," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(3), pages 817-827, August.
    12. Dan Acland & Matthew R. Levy, 2015. "Naiveté, Projection Bias, and Habit Formation in Gym Attendance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(1), pages 146-160, January.
    13. Raj Chetty & Emmanuel Saez & Laszlo Sandor, 2014. "What Policies Increase Prosocial Behavior? An Experiment with Referees at the Journal of Public Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(3), pages 169-188, Summer.
    14. O'Donoghue, Ted & Rabin, Matthew, 2008. "Procrastination on long-term projects," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 161-175, May.
    15. Acland, Dan & Levy, Matthew R., 2015. "Naiveté, projection bias, and habit formation in gym attendance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 66147, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. Shapiro, Jesse M., 2005. "Is there a daily discount rate? Evidence from the food stamp nutrition cycle," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2-3), pages 303-325, February.
    17. Youssef Benzarti, 2020. "How Taxing Is Tax Filing? Using Revealed Preferences to Estimate Compliance Costs," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 38-57, November.
    18. Esther Duflo & Michael Kremer & Jonathan Robinson, 2011. "Nudging Farmers to Use Fertilizer: Theory and Experimental Evidence from Kenya," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2350-2390, October.
    19. David Laibson, 1997. "Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic Discounting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 443-478.
    20. Stefano DellaVigna & Ulrike Malmendier, 2006. "Paying Not to Go to the Gym," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 694-719, June.
    21. Cesare Righi & Timothy Simcoe, 2017. "Patent Examiner Specialization," NBER Working Papers 23913, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Fischer, Carolyn, 2001. "Read this paper later: procrastination with time-consistent preferences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 249-269, November.
    23. Michael D. Frakes & Melissa F. Wasserman, 2017. "Is the Time Allocated to Review Patent Applications Inducing Examiners to Grant Invalid Patents? Evidence from Microlevel Application Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(3), pages 550-563, July.
    24. Ian Larkin, 2014. "The Cost of High-Powered Incentives: Employee Gaming in Enterprise Software Sales," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(2), pages 199-227.
    25. Akerlof, George A, 1991. "Procrastination and Obedience," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(2), pages 1-19, May.
    26. Ximena Cadena & Antoinette Schoar & Alexandra Cristea & Héber M. Delgado-Medrano, 2011. "Fighting Procrastination in the Workplace: An Experiment," NBER Working Papers 16944, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Daniel E. Ho & Lisa Larrimore Ouellette, 2020. "Improving Scientific Judgments in Law and Government: A Field Experiment of Patent Peer Review," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(2), pages 190-223, June.
    2. Dirkmaat, Thomas & Rohde, Kirsten I.M. & van de Veer, Evelien & van Dijk, Bram & Yu, Xiao, 2023. "Managing “Last Moment Behavior”: Non-binding target dates to reduce the spikes in task completion at deadlines," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 219(C).
    3. deGrazia, Charles A.W. & Pairolero, Nicholas A. & Teodorescu, Mike H.M., 2021. "Examination incentives, learning, and patent office outcomes: The use of examiner’s amendments at the USPTO," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(10).
    4. Frakes, Michael D. & Wasserman, Melissa F., 2021. "Knowledge spillovers, peer effects, and telecommuting: Evidence from the U.S. Patent Office," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    5. Sun, Zhen & Wright, Brian D., 2022. "Citations backward and forward: Insights into the patent examiner's role," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(7).
    6. Michael D. Frakes & Melissa F. Wasserman, 2024. "Deadlines Versus Continuous Incentives: Evidence from the Patent Office," NBER Working Papers 32066, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael D. Frakes & Melissa F. Wasserman, 2016. "Procrastination in the Workplace: Evidence from the U.S. Patent Office," NBER Working Papers 22987, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Piccoli, Luca & Tiezzi, Silvia, 2021. "Rational addiction and time-consistency: An empirical test," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    3. Akin, Zafer, 2012. "Intertemporal decision making with present biased preferences," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 30-47.
    4. Fabian Herweg & Daniel Müller, 2011. "Performance of procrastinators: on the value of deadlines," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 70(3), pages 329-366, March.
    5. Chen‐Nan Liao & Ying‐Ju Chen, 2021. "Design of Long‐Term Conditional Cash Transfer Program to Encourage Healthy Habits," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(11), pages 3987-4003, November.
    6. Frakes, Michael D. & Wasserman, Melissa F., 2021. "Knowledge spillovers, peer effects, and telecommuting: Evidence from the U.S. Patent Office," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    7. Michael D. Frakes & Melissa F. Wasserman, 2024. "Deadlines Versus Continuous Incentives: Evidence from the Patent Office," NBER Working Papers 32066, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. repec:oup:qjecon:v:128:y:2012:i:1:p:53-104 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Bisin, Alberto & Hyndman, Kyle, 2020. "Present-bias, procrastination and deadlines in a field experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 339-357.
    10. Schumacher, Heiner, 2016. "Insurance, self-control, and contract flexibility," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 220-232.
    11. Heutel, Garth, 2015. "Optimal policy instruments for externality-producing durable goods under present bias," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 54-70.
    12. Dean Karlan & Margaret McConnell & Sendhil Mullainathan & Jonathan Zinman, 2016. "Getting to the Top of Mind: How Reminders Increase Saving," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(12), pages 3393-3411, December.
    13. Hinnosaar, Marit, 2016. "Time inconsistency and alcohol sales restrictions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 108-131.
    14. Laureti, Carolina & Szafarz, Ariane, 2023. "Banking regulation and costless commitment contracts for time-inconsistent agents," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    15. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    16. Alex Imas & Sally Sadoff & Anya Samek, 2017. "Do People Anticipate Loss Aversion?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(5), pages 1271-1284, May.
    17. Anett John, 2020. "When Commitment Fails: Evidence from a Field Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(2), pages 503-529, February.
    18. Zachary Breig & Matthew Gibson & Jeffrey Shrader, 2019. "Why Do We Procrastinate? Present Bias and Optimism," Department of Economics Working Papers 2019-15, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    19. Uttara Balakrishnan & Johannes Haushofer & Pamela Jakiela, 2020. "How soon is now? Evidence of present bias from convex time budget experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(2), pages 294-321, June.
    20. Sumit Agarwal & Yongheng Deng & Jia He, 2020. "Time Preferences, Mortgage Choice and Mortgage Default," International Real Estate Review, Global Social Science Institute, vol. 23(2), pages 151-187.
    21. Beshears, John & Choi, James J. & Laibson, David & Madrian, Brigitte C., 2008. "How are preferences revealed?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(8-9), pages 1787-1794, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:183:y:2020:i:c:s0047272720300049. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505578 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.