Research on Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Benefits to Individuals
Research on Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Benefits to Individuals
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 in the economy.
The research makes use of patent data, detailed demand data, venture capital databases, publicly available survey data, and administrative data.
Research into Intellectual Property
1) How patents are written affects their value and usage (details)
Paper: Crafting Intellectual Property Rights (w/ Xavier Jaravel, AEJ Applied)
Methodology: Bayesian estimation of examiner effects, additional correlational evidence
Implications: patent trolls are particularly sensitive to how patents are written and prefer lightly edited patent claims that are unlikely to hold up in court; they are, at best, incentivizing innovation in a very inefficient manner.
2) Patents claiming abstract ideas implemented on a computer do not facilitate innovation but do lead to more litigation and patent trolling activity
Methodology: difference-in-difference leveraging Supreme Court ruling, some additional evidence on mechanisms (PAE and litigation activity)
Implications: the Alice v. CLS Bank ruling was an effective targeted intervention that escaped the usual tradeoffs when considering patent reforms
PAEs are significantly more likely to purchase patents with lightly edited claims language.
Industries with higher exposure to the Alice decision experienced an increase in startup funding.
Research into Innovators and Benefits to Individuals
1) Innovators innovate for consumers like them and can be influenced by peers (details)
Paper: Social Push and the Direction of Innovation (w/ Elias Einio and Xavier Jaravel)
Methodology: broad descriptive evidence, endogenous growth model
Implications: encouraging more innovators from underrepresented backgrounds (women, low SES individuals) can increase growth and improve welfare for consumers from underrepresented groups.
2) The types of businesses started by entrepreneurs are affected by their social peers
Paper: Social Exposure, Innovator-Consumer Homophily, and Inequality: Evidence from College Peers
Methodology: peer effects analysis using administrative data
Implications: social factors independent of market size can create quantitatively large differences in the types of businesses created.
Ongoing work
Innovation and benefits
Who benefits from entrepreneurship and trade?
Commercialization of innovation
Inventor careers
Usage of phone apps by SES
Google Sites
Report abuse