IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2607.04956.html

The Geography of Private Sector Agricultural Innovation in the USA: Evidence from Patents

Author

Listed:
  • Matt Clancy

Abstract

This paper develops a novel estimates of annual private sector agricultural R&D at the level of US states for the period 1976-2014. For each of five different agricultural subsectors, I allocate estimates of national private sector R&D across the 50 states by using the geographic distribution of inventors listed on contemporaneous US patents in the same agricultural subsector. These five subsectors comprise a large majority of total private sector agricultural R&D. I then use this new dataset to document three stylized facts about private sector agricultural R&D: it is highly correlated with the size of the state's agricultural economy (including over time, as well as in cross section), it is highly persistent, and is has become increasingly less concentrated over 1976-2014, though this last trend shows signs of reversing.

Suggested Citation

  • Matt Clancy, 2026. "The Geography of Private Sector Agricultural Innovation in the USA: Evidence from Patents," Papers 2607.04956, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2607.04956
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2607.04956
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gregory D. Graff & Gordon C. Rausser & Arthur A. Small, 2003. "Agricultural Biotechnology's Complementary Intellectual Assets," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(2), pages 349-363, May.
    2. Daron Acemoglu & Joshua Linn, 2004. "Market Size in Innovation: Theory and Evidence from the Pharmaceutical Industry," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(3), pages 1049-1090.
    3. Kortum, Samuel & Lerner, Josh, 1999. "What is behind the recent surge in patenting?1," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 1-22, January.
    4. Wesley M. Cohen & Richard R. Nelson & John P. Walsh, 2000. "Protecting Their Intellectual Assets: Appropriability Conditions and Why U.S. Manufacturing Firms Patent (or Not)," NBER Working Papers 7552, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Pierre Dubois & Olivier de Mouzon & Fiona Scott-Morton & Paul Seabright, 2015. "Market size and pharmaceutical innovation," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 46(4), pages 844-871, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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, 2025. "Strategic Patenting: Evidence from the Biopharmaceutical Industry," NBER Working Papers 34024, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Eric Budish & Benjamin Roin & Heidi Williams, 2013. "Do fixed patent terms distort innovation? Evidence from cancer clinical trials," Discussion Papers 13-001, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    3. Fabian Gaessler & Stefan Wagner, 2022. "Patents, Data Exclusivity, and the Development of New Drugs," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(3), pages 571-586, May.
    4. Branstetter, Lee G. & Kwon, Namho, 2018. "South Korea's transition from imitator to innovator: The role of external demand shocks," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 28-42.
    5. Fontana, Roberto & Nuvolari, Alessandro & Shimizu, Hiroshi & Vezzulli, Andrea, 2013. "Reassessing patent propensity: Evidence from a dataset of R&D awards, 1977–2004," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(10), pages 1780-1792.
    6. Gamba, Simona & Magazzini, Laura & Pertile, Paolo, 2021. "R&D and market size: Who benefits from orphan drug legislation?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    7. Branstetter, Lee & Chatterjee, Chirantan & Higgins, Matthew J., 2022. "Generic competition and the incentives for early-stage pharmaceutical innovation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(10).
    8. Penin, Julien, 2005. "Patents versus ex post rewards: A new look," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 641-656, June.
    9. Philippe Aghion & Antoine Dechezleprêtre & David Hémous & Ralf Martin & John Van Reenen, 2016. "Carbon Taxes, Path Dependency, and Directed Technical Change: Evidence from the Auto Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(1), pages 1-51.
    10. Heidi L. Williams, 2016. "Intellectual Property Rights and Innovation: Evidence from Health Care Markets," Innovation Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(1), pages 53-87.
    11. Jinyoung Kim & Gerald Marschke, 2004. "Accounting for the recent surge in U.S. patenting: changes in R&D expenditures, patent yields, and the high tech sector," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(6), pages 543-558.
    12. Crass, Dirk & Schwiebacher, Franz, 2013. "Do trademarks diminish the substitutability of products in innovative knowledge-intensive services?," ZEW Discussion Papers 13-061, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    13. Pierre Dubois & Morten Sæthre, 2020. "On the Effect of Parallel Trade on Manufacturers' and Retailers' Profits in the Pharmaceutical Sector," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(6), pages 2503-2545, November.
    14. Moshirian, Fariborz & Tian, Xuan & Zhang, Bohui & Zhang, Wenrui, 2021. "Stock market liberalization and innovation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(3), pages 985-1014.
    15. Mark Pauly & Kyle Myers, 2016. "A Ricardian-Demand Explanation for Changing Pharmaceutical R&D Productivity," NBER Working Papers 22720, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Iizuka, Toshiaki & Uchida, Gyo, 2017. "Promoting innovation in small markets: Evidence from the market for rare and intractable diseases," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 56-65.
    17. Ugur, Mehmet & Trushin, Eshref, 2018. "Asymmetric information and heterogeneous effects of R&D subsidies: evidence on R&D investment and employment of R&D personel," Greenwich Papers in Political Economy 21943, University of Greenwich, Greenwich Political Economy Research Centre.
    18. Wang, Lucy Xiaolu, 2022. "Global drug diffusion and innovation with the medicines patent pool," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    19. de Rassenfosse, Gaetan & van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie, Bruno, 2009. "A policy insight into the R&D-patent relationship," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 779-792, June.
    20. Beth Woods & James Lomas & Mark Sculpher & Helen Weatherly & Karl Claxton, 2024. "Achieving dynamic efficiency in pharmaceutical innovation: Identifying the optimal share of value and payments required," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(4), pages 804-819, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:arx:papers:2607.04956. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arxiv.org/ .

    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.