How Do Patents Affect Research Investments?
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w23088.pdf
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751.56 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
17a2b05a47eeed231a12eea97dad4e59
Author(s)
Williams, Heidi L
Date Issued
August 2017
Journal
Annual Review of Economics
Publisher
Annual Reviews
Citation
Williams, Heidi L. “How Do Patents Affect Research Investments?” Annual Review of Economics 9, no. 1 (August 2, 2017): 441–469.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Although patent systems have been widely used both historically and internationally, there is nonetheless a tremendous amount of controversy over whether patent systems, in practice, improve the alignment between private returns and social contributions. In this article, I describe three parameters—how the disclosure function affects research investments, how patent strength affects research investments in new technologies, and how patents on existing technologies affect follow-on innovation—needed to inform the question of how patents affect research investments, and review the available evidence that has attempted to empirically estimate these parameters.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1146/ANNUREV-ECONOMICS-110216-100959
