Research on the Innovation System
Research on the Innovation System
Embedded Files
Summary
This page highlights some of the key findings from my research into innovation, entrepreneurship, and consumer welfare.
Most empirical work either assumes exogenous technology or abstracts away from the downstream market structure (e.g., uses market size proxies). My goal is to make more connections between activities in the innovation system (patent policy, innovator behavior, etc.) and downstream markets (regulations, detailed measures of market structure, and labor markets), in order to better model the interplay between the two and derive more nuanced implications for policy and for understanding the role of innovation and entrepreneurship in the economy.
The research makes use of patent data, detailed demand data, venture capital databases, publicly available survey data, and administrative data.
Crafting Intellectual Property Rights: Implications for Patent Assertion Entities, Litigation, and Innovation
Crafting Intellectual Property Rights: Implications for Patent Assertion Entities, Litigation, and Innovation
AEJ Applied (w/ Xavier Jaravel)
Patent Assertion Entities are highly sensitive to how patents are written, and prefer to buy lightly edited patent claims that are unlikely to hold up in court. They are, at best, incentivizing innovation in a very inefficient manner. More broadly, variation in the patent document has significant effects on patent-related outcomes.
Abstract Ideas Patents and Startup Funding: Evidence from Alice v. CLS Bank
Abstract Ideas Patents and Startup Funding: Evidence from Alice v. CLS Bank
Research Policy (w/ Peyton Williams)
We find that the increase in the stringency of patent eligibility criteria in software and business method patents led to a sharp decrease in patenting in the affected areas. However, startup funding increased significantly in exposed industries, likely due to a reduction in the activity of Patent Assertion Entities and a broader reduction in the number of patents.Â
Social Push and the Direction of Innovation
Social Push and the Direction of Innovation
American Economic Review (conditionally accepted; w/ Elias Einio and Xavier Jaravel)
Patent inventors and entrepreneurs tend to create new goods that are purchased by individuals from similar backgrounds (gender, age, SES, geography). The estimated homophily is large across these dimensions, and implies significant growth and cost-of-living effects in a world where individuals from certain backgrounds are much less likely to participate in the innovation system.
Social Exposure, Innovator-Consumer Homophily, and Inequality: Evidence from College Peers
Social Exposure, Innovator-Consumer Homophily, and Inequality: Evidence from College Peers
w/ Elias Einio and Xavier Jaravel
We show that social factors, independent of market size, can create quantitatively large differences in the types of businesses created, using a college peer design. We then use these estimates to calibrate a model of innovators' choice of direction that incorporates comparative advantage and non-pecuniary motives.
Who Hires Whom? Entrepreneurial Backgrounds and Labor Market Opportunities
Who Hires Whom? Entrepreneurial Backgrounds and Labor Market Opportunities
w/ Xavier Jaravel
We provide systematic evidence using data from the U.S. Census and LinkedIn profiles that entrepreneurs hire people from similar backgrounds. Large homophily effects persist as firms age. We show that, on average, entrepreneurs pay people from similar backgrounds relatively more. To organize the key findings, we build a model where entrepreneurs create heterogeneous production functions. Calibrations suggest that unequal participation in entrepreneurship can have quantitatively significant impacts on labor market opportunities and wages.
Other Work
Other Work
The Distributional Effects of Trade: Theory and Evidence from the U.S.
The Distributional Effects of Trade: Theory and Evidence from the U.S.
w/ Kirill Borusyak and Xavier Jaravel
Google Sites
Report abuse