IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp10815.html

Racing against Time in Research: A Study of the 1995 U.S. Patent Law Amendment

Author

Listed:
  • Kim, Jinyoung

    (Korea University)

Abstract

Teamwork in research has been on the rise and so has the size of R&D teams. This paper offers an explanation for increasing team size that we call the "racing against time" hypothesis: With innovation races more competitive globally, R&D firms need to finish research projects as quickly as possible and therefore have an incentive to put together a team with more R&D personnel. We test this hypothesis against a natural experiment that took place in 1995 when the U.S. patent law was amended.

Suggested Citation

  • Kim, Jinyoung, 2017. "Racing against Time in Research: A Study of the 1995 U.S. Patent Law Amendment," IZA Discussion Papers 10815, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10815
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp10815.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Adams, James D. & Black, Grant C. & Clemmons, J. Roger & Stephan, Paula E., 2005. "Scientific teams and institutional collaborations: Evidence from U.S. universities, 1981-1999," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 259-285, April.
    2. Bronwyn H. Hall & Adam B. Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg, 2001. "The NBER Patent Citation Data File: Lessons, Insights and Methodological Tools," NBER Working Papers 8498, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Mark J. Garmaise, 2011. "Ties that Truly Bind: Noncompetition Agreements, Executive Compensation, and Firm Investment," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 27(2), pages 376-425.
    4. Manuel Trajtenberg, 1990. "A Penny for Your Quotes: Patent Citations and the Value of Innovations," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(1), pages 172-187, Spring.
    5. ., 1994. "Firm, Boundaries of the," Chapters, in: Geoffrey M. Hodgson & Warren J. Samuels & Marc R. Tool (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Institutional and Evolutionary Economics, volume 0, chapter 43, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Perron, Pierre & Zhu, Xiaokang, 2005. "Structural breaks with deterministic and stochastic trends," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 129(1-2), pages 65-119.
    7. Bessen, James, 2008. "The value of U.S. patents by owner and patent characteristics," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 932-945, June.
    8. McDowell, John M & Melvin, Michael, 1983. "The Determinants of Co-Authorship: An Analysis of the Economics Literature," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 65(1), pages 155-160, February.
    9. Benjamin F. Jones, 2009. "The Burden of Knowledge and the "Death of the Renaissance Man": Is Innovation Getting Harder?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(1), pages 283-317.
    10. NAGAOKA, Sadao & 長岡, 貞男 & IGAMI, Masatsura & 伊神, 正貫 & WALSH, John P. & IJICHI, Tomohiro & 伊地知, 寛博, 2011. "Knowledge Creation Process in Science: Key Comparative Findings from the Hitotsubashi-NISTEP-Georgia Tech Scientists' Survey in Japan and the US," IIR Working Paper 11-09, Institute of Innovation Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    11. Gary S. Becker & Kevin M. Murphy, 1994. "The Division of Labor, Coordination Costs, and Knowledge," NBER Chapters, in: Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, Third Edition, pages 299-322, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. ., 1994. "Firm, Theoru of the (I)," Chapters, in: Geoffrey M. Hodgson & Warren J. Samuels & Marc R. Tool (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Institutional and Evolutionary Economics, volume 0, chapter 44, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Patrick Bolton & Mathias Dewatripont, 1994. "The Firm as a Communication Network," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(4), pages 809-839.
    14. Jinyoung Kim & Gerald Marschke, 2005. "Labor Mobility of Scientists, Technological Diffusion, and the Firm's Patenting Decision," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(2), pages 298-317, Summer.
    15. Gambardella, Alfonso, 2013. "The economic value of patented inventions: Thoughts and some open questions," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 626-633.
    16. Pakes, Ariel S, 1986. "Patents as Options: Some Estimates of the Value of Holding European Patent Stocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(4), pages 755-784, July.
    17. Jinyoung Kim, 2015. "Patent Portfolio Management of Sequential Inventions: Evidence from US Patent Renewal Data," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 47(2), pages 195-218, September.
    18. Carbonell, Pilar & Rodriguez, Ana I., 2006. "Designing teams for speedy product development: The moderating effect of technological complexity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 225-232, February.
    19. Chris Forman & Nicolas van Zeebroeck, 2012. "From Wires to Partners: How the Internet Has Fostered R&D Collaborations Within Firms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(8), pages 1549-1568, August.
    20. ., 1994. "Firm, Theoru of the (II)," Chapters, in: Geoffrey M. Hodgson & Warren J. Samuels & Marc R. Tool (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Institutional and Evolutionary Economics, volume 0, chapter 45, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    21. Sampsa Samila & Olav Sorenson, 2011. "Noncompete Covenants: Incentives to Innovate or Impediments to Growth," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(3), pages 425-438, March.
    22. Hall, Bronwyn H & Ziedonis, Rosemarie Ham, 2001. "The Patent Paradox Revisited: An Empirical Study of Patenting in the U.S. Semiconductor Industry, 1979-1995," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 32(1), pages 101-128, Spring.
    23. Deng, Yi, 2011. "A dynamic stochastic analysis of international patent application and renewal processes," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 766-777.
    24. Arora, Ashish & Gambardella, Alfonso, 1990. "Complementarity and External Linkages: The Strategies of the Large Firms in Biotechnology," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 361-379, June.
    25. Mark Schankerman, 1998. "How Valuable is Patent Protection? Estimates by Technology Field," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 29(1), pages 77-107, Spring.
    26. Gary S. Becker & Kevin M. Murphy, 1994. "The Division of Labor, Coordination Costs, and Knowledge," NBER Chapters, in: Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, Third Edition, pages 299-322, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    27. Agarwal, Rajshree & Gort, Michael, 2001. "First-Mover Advantage and the Speed of Competitive Entry, 1887-1986," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(1), pages 161-177, April.
    28. Yi Deng, 2003. "A Dynamic Stochastic Analysis of International Patent Application and Renewal Processes," Computing in Economics and Finance 2003 189, Society for Computational Economics.
    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. Kim, Jinyoung, 2022. "Teamwork in innovation under time pressure," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    2. Jinyoung Kim, 2015. "Patent Portfolio Management of Sequential Inventions: Evidence from US Patent Renewal Data," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 47(2), pages 195-218, September.
    3. Bessen, James, 2008. "The value of U.S. patents by owner and patent characteristics," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 932-945, June.
    4. Jinyoung Kim, 2010. "Patent Portfolio Management of Sequential Innovations," Discussion Paper Series 1005, Institute of Economic Research, Korea University.
    5. Jinyoung Kim, 2015. "Patent Portfolio Management of Sequential Innovations: Theory and Empirics," Discussion Paper Series 1504, Institute of Economic Research, Korea University.
    6. Fauchart, Emmanuelle & Bacache-Beauvallet, Maya & Bourreau, Marc & Moreau, François, 2022. "Do-It-Yourself or Do-It-Together: How digital technologies affect creating alone or with others?," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    7. Xiao, Hongyu & Wu, Andy & Kim, Jaeho, 2021. "Commuting and innovation: Are closer inventors more productive?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    8. Zhang, Gupeng & Lv, Xiaofeng & Zhou, Jianghua, 2014. "Private value of patent right and patent infringement: An empirical study based on patent renewal data of China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 37-54.
    9. Kyriakos Drivas & Andreas Panagopoulos, 2016. "Using the patent term changes in assessing the evolution of patent valuation from filing to maturity," European Journal of Innovation Management, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 19(4), pages 528-546, October.
    10. Amit Jain & Will Mitchell, 2022. "Specialization as a double‐edged sword: The relationship of scientist specialization with R&D productivity and impact following collaborator change," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(5), pages 986-1024, May.
    11. Nicolas van Zeebroeck, 2009. "From patent renewals to applications survival: do portfolio management strategies play a role in patent length?," Working Papers CEB 09-028.RS, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    12. Annamaria Conti & Christopher C. Liu, 2014. "The (Changing) Knowledge Production Function: Evidence from the MIT Department of Biology for 1970–2000," NBER Chapters, in: The Changing Frontier: Rethinking Science and Innovation Policy, pages 49-74, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Annamaria Conti & Christopher C. Liu, 2014. "The (Changing) Knowledge Production Function: Evidence from the MIT Department of Biology for 1970-2000," NBER Working Papers 20037, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Federico Munari & Maurizio Sobrero, 2011. "Economic and Management Perspectives on the Value of Patents," Chapters, in: Federico Munari & Raffaele Oriani (ed.), The Economic Valuation of Patents, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    15. Chris Forman & Nicolas van Zeebroeck, 2012. "From Wires to Partners: How the Internet Has Fostered R&D Collaborations Within Firms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(8), pages 1549-1568, August.
    16. Appio, Francesco Paolo & Baglieri, Daniela & Cesaroni, Fabrizio & Spicuzza, Lucia & Donato, Alessia, 2022. "Patent design strategies: Empirical evidence from European patents," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).
    17. Allen, Douglas W & Lueck, Dean, 1998. "The Nature of the Farm," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(2), pages 343-386, October.
    18. Kyriakos Drivas & Claire Economidou & Elena Ketteni & Konstantina Kottaridi, 2021. "Firms’ knowledge investment and market responses," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(5), pages 2363-2394, November.
    19. Barankay, Iwan & Contigiani, Andrea & Hsu, David, 2018. "Trade Secrets and Innovation: Evidence from the “Inevitable Disclosure†Doctrine," CEPR Discussion Papers 13077, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Manuel Acosta & Daniel Coronado & Esther Ferrándiz & Manuel Jiménez, 2022. "Effects of knowledge spillovers between competitors on patent quality: what patent citations reveal about a global duopoly," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 47(5), pages 1451-1487, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • O32 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp10815. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    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.